the. u.s. food and drug administration reveals its and now probing 5 allergic reactions to the pfizer biotech vaccine including 3 alaska health workers. the u.k. raises the alarm over a deadly new strain of the covert 19 and unveils that drastic new restrictions across london and much of the southeast england over the christmas period. in the u.s. secretary of state blames russia for a cyber attack on government agencies although security officials admit they do not know who is behind the breach.

broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow this is r t international and sean thomas certainly glad to have you with us our now authorities in the u.s. have said that they are now investigating 5 adverse responses to the pfizer biotech covert vaccine including 3 alaska health workers officials admit they still do not know the exact cause i think we'll be looking at all of the data we can from each of these reactions to sort out exactly what happened and we'll also be looking to try to understand which component of the facts we might be helping to produce. that news it came just hours after a 2nd vaccine developed by madonna was approved by us regulators meanwhile vice president mike pence who received the pfizer biotech shot live on t.v. along with his wife and he gave it a shot his vote of confidence. karen and i were more than happy to step forward

before this week was about. to take this safe and effective coronavirus vaccine that we have secured produced for the american people there have now been several confirmed cases of allergic reactions to the pfizer biotech vaccine a 3rd health worker in alaska was hospitalized after getting the injection to others also had an adverse a risk adverse response with one taken to intensive care meanwhile the u.k. has registered 2 adverse reactions to the shot and health officials there have warned people with severe allergies to avoid taking it there is also controversy that americans they cannot sue pfizer or madonna now in february authorities brought in the public readiness and emergency preparedness or prep act it provides legal immunity for all vaccine makers for 4 years attorneys attorney rogie dunn explained why even if americans fall sick they may never get compensation if they

are sick and they miss a couple of days of work and they don't feel good for 3 or 4 weeks they're going to get 0 compensation under the american legal system typically and individual injured by a product or service can sue and you can have a class action where literally tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people can sue the government when they implemented this war speed to have a vaccine developed much faster than normal the companies weren't willing to do that for fear that they might get sued so the government said we will protect you companies so you can't be sued in top us physician and consultant to vaccine manufacturers spoke to our channel about the state of covert jobs stanley plotkin told us whether the shots can stop the pen demick.

many people have fear of vaccines and this is true throughout the world and yet when one really looks at the record vaccines in general have been quite safe now the thing that one has to understand is what is risk if the risk of the disease as it is for covert 19 let's say is 20 percent so that's 2 in every 10 people right away and the risk of the reactions to vaccines that i'm familiar with is about one in a 1000000 so if you compare the risks if you're intelligent you would take the vaccine. what we don't know for any of the vaccines thus far is whether they will consistently prevent

infection which is important because if they do that will prevent the virus from spreading if they don't then we have a situation where vaccination vaccinated people will be protected but unvaccinated people will not be protected so we have a lot to learn about the vaccines. both the comolli vaccine and the astra zeneca vaccine are based on a virus called addinall virus the astra zeneca people probably feel that they could. improve the response by using not one. had no virus but 2 and that was the good idea of the malaya vaccine to use one that had no wires as a prime and another add no iris as

a boost and that seems to work better. they will be collected certainly through in the next year if you're talking about safety. city examination of safety is really. can be done in a month or 2 after vaccination or as if you're talking about efficacy then you in the long observations the term and how effective a vaccine is and over what period of time that's another issue that we don't have any information on i will not have any information for many months i'm not pessimistic about the attack scenes at least reducing the infection whether they will completely obliterate the infection remains to be seen. christmas plans are

being called off for millions of people across london and southeast england with some tough new restrictions taking effect just an hour from now the prime minister broke the news earlier after a new mutation of covered $1000.00 was identified which is 70 percent more infectious. but in the early evidence we have on this new variant of the virus the potential risk it poses with a very heavy heart i must tell you we can't continue with christmas as planned. the announcement sparked protests in london with the strict new measures expected to ruin christmas plans for millions of protesters clashed with police and at least 27 people were arrested as coded skeptics gathered in parliament square according to local reports. under the new rules people are urged to stay at home and indoor mixing between households is banned over the holidays non-essential shops

and recreational venues will be shut and foreign travel is only permitted for essential purposes the rules will apply for at least 2 weeks and similar restrictions are being introduced in scotland and wales. head of the measures coming into force there was a last minute dash for christmas gifts leading to long lines outside stores across london outlets had reopened following the lifting of a nationwide lockdown earlier this month we spoke with british t.v. doctor turned politician david bull who thinks the government's mixed messaging as undermined efforts to tackle the pandemic. i think people are absolutely frustrated by the way of being treated by the government to me it exemplifies how the roles of those that he has become and it seems to be changing from one disaster to a now and it's not being proactive at all it's being entirely agree and many people would have said well actually we knew about this new strain we knew the chinese

misses it as it was increasing and i think if you were going to put in more draconian restrictions you could have done it and given the people at the time what people on this had in you is yes it may be able to spread more quickly i.e. 70 percent more transmissible but we have no data yet that he's an old home full of the strains that are already in circulation and. forget focusing on how we seem to focus on every other medical condition the fact is we've got hundreds or thousands of people waiting for elective procedures which simply are happening in many parts of the country we've got people struggling with mental health it's become a code. so i think this power plays going on between the scientific experts and the politicians and morris to his credit has tried to resist the call of those scientists but i'm afraid they don't seem to want at the end of the day and boris is obviously bound to the pressure that he's getting from the scientists remember science isn't everything this is

a balance of political decision making and science. u.s. secretary of state my pump ai has accused russia of carrying out a major cyber attack on government departments that is despite the lack of any official conclusions from u.s. intelligence agencies. a very significant effort and i think you know we can say pretty clearly that it was the russians that engaged in this activity. the breach was reported last weekend and is believed to have targeted several government bodies including the departments of state and homeland security the treasury and the nuclear security administration a number of private companies are also believed to have been breached and the hackers are said to have hijacked software used by the u.s. government to gain access officials say it was done by a patient and well resourced adversary and the national cyber security agency has called the attack a grave risk to u.s. infrastructure but it has not named any suspects so far russia has denied any

involvement. that it has to do to look at you but we didn't register any official messages from the united states about hacker attacks and accusations about such attacks we've become accustomed to the fact that the united states as well as other western countries simply announce in the media or about new acres ations address that russia. political analyst gilbert doctorow believes there are several countries around the world that could have carried out such an attack on the u.s. but i have in mind is that while she was more. we could things which made no sense whatsoever for those interests but it was very good for political talking points what it wants. when we look at this scoop of the hacking that's been described to me and we look at the sensitivity. of the national security interests of senators that are possibly the most nervous city that this particular incident is

different when you put it where the water which likely only the state. level of private individuals or or or subcontractors who most of there busy or in the world who are several states in the world. of doing was. still to come as the price of cryptocurrency bitcoin hits record highs artie's money guru max kaiser tells us what it means for the future of the economy as he sees it that is among our stories still ahead when we return this is our international.

so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy one from day shouldn't let it be an arms race is on all sides very dramatic developments only mostly i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful very critical time to sit down and talk.

welcome back his r.t. international now haunted by hunter gate joe biden has again been forced to give answers after federal prosecutors launched a criminal probe into his son hunter's taxes in an interview together with his wife the u.s. president elect branded all charges foul play. we have great confidence in our so. i'm not concerned about it and the accusation has been made against him i think it's kind of foul play these accusations are just part of wider claims including corruption allegations over 100 biden's ukraine dealings and leaked e-mails from a laptop reported to be his. god have comments why this will remain a headache for the man poised to enter the white house. we none of us are clean let's be honest we've all done things we're ashamed of have secrets that we wouldn't want anyone to know sometimes they come to light especially if you're

a politician nixon and watergate clinton lewinsky would joe budden and his boy his son hunter biden is now under a federal criminal investigation like a vine is selling influence over c. hunter biden made millions of dollars in ukraine highlighting the corruption of joe and hunter biden quite the character. his scandal ridden chairmanship of a ukrainian energy company a tax investigation under way suspicion of money laundering sex scandals and even a pawnshop and for hard drugs crack cocaine you may know all of this or you may be hearing it for the 1st star depending on what you watch and who you read because prove democrat networks didn't think all of this is a newsworthy issue and neither does daddy president elect biden is deeply proud of his son who has fought through difficult challenges and grit the vicious personal attacks of recent months only to emerge stronger personal attacks he says

the justice department investigating biden's taxes might disagree or how's this for a personal attack biden jr allegedly using daddy's name to secure 10000000 dollars from the chinese i hope my letter finds you well i regret missing you on your last visit to the united states please accept the best wishes from the entire biden family as well as my partners the biden family is now reportedly under 3 federal investigations with the f.b.i. involved and off to 4 years of russia gate shenanigans i would say republicans probably want a little payback a little 100 gate if you will. on top 3 federal investigations that go into take a lot of confidence let's just hope that daddy can handle the pressure because if he thought that he wouldn't scape the gauntlet that they put trump through well he

was wrong the importance of the thing isn't that hunter has bad information about him it's that the mainstream media prevented the public from knowing about it until after the election and what's done is done the mainstream media isn't judging stories by their newsworthiness they're judging them by whether they will help or hurt democrat nominees and candidates and particularly in a presidential election the mainstream media has been trying for 4 years to make donald trump go away and i think this time according to the results of the election they finally succeeded they couldn't do it with the russia hoax they couldn't do it with impeachment but finally they got donald trump kicked out of office so they believe by getting joe biden elected in the way to elect joe biden was to protect him by not letting the public know things about him and his family that could be damaging to his election chances it's really not complicated. russian

scientists to believe they may have made a breakthrough in the decades long search for a vaccine against hiv after going through several modifications it is showing some highly promising results as artie's correspondent wrong cause of explained. russia's scientific censor vector who are about to register their 19 vaccine have made a major announcement and this time it has absolutely nothing to do with the corona virus the scientists claim that their age hiv vaccine has shown a near perfect result with 100 percent of the volunteers developing antibodies now the research itself has taken place in 2 siberian clinics with 240 volunteers participating vector center says that they have been working on the hiv vaccine since 2011 and there nell certain that it is safe and doesn't cause any side effects according to russia's national registry of drugs the license for clinical

trials was received by vector back in 23rd scene and now let's get some more details about this particular vaccine 100 percent of volunteers showed hiv specific antibodies and cytotoxic t. lymphocytes off to double vaccination and 80 percent of them had antibodies against hiv do viruses so the main question now is proly when the vaccine will actually be ready according to a vector clinical trials should be completed by the end of next year and as soon as registration is complete in russia it will be made available the head of the country's consumer watchdog also announced a little bit earlier actually back on the 1st of december that russia already developed the hiv vaccine. legal and a language experts are scratching their heads after brazil's supreme court appeared to force covert vaccinations on everyone in the country but with even the supreme court justice struggling to clarify the difference between obligatory mandatory and

compulsory and the president coming out against confusion is rife. every brazilian will have the obligation to be vaccinated which just not mean they can be forced to take the vaccine compulsory does not mean that compulsory means that any noncompliance will lead to a penalty for the beginning of the oversimplify it said nancy if you don't want to be treated you have the right not to be treated if i decide for example not to do chemotherapy and to die it's my problem and we in the federal government have already made clear that the vaccine will be offered to everyone but those who do not want to take it don't have to the country is suffering a spike in covert cases brazil is the 2nd worst hit country in the world behind the us reporting more than 800 deaths from the virus on friday alone we asked people in brazil what they thought about the supreme court decision. i grew the nation be mandatory because brazilians are not aware of how dangerous the virus is how people

go into live with others without being vaccinated i don't agree with making it mandatory because everyone has to make their own decision about taking the vaccine or not i agree with the penalties because for the good of all humanity to be able to go out and be a tease on the street i agree with the vaccine being mandatory for the good of the whole world. i believe there has to be a middle way that everyone understands the importance of the vaccine and how it can help us but with the nazis being mandatory i believe taking the vaccine shouldn't be mandatory although i also understand that in case the person doesn't take the vaccine it could be difficult for them because it could put other people's lives at risk. after almost 6 years of war in yemen almost 2000000 children are now suffering from acute malnutrition according to the united nations and already starving population has been pushed into much deeper hardship since the start of the pandemic the conflict in yemen has claimed more than 100000 lives with much of

the country left in ruins by a relentless saudi led bombing campaign nearly 4000000 people have been displaced with many families forced to hide in the mountains. we moved here and even had our wedding ceremony here we do not have a place to live or anything else we need help. from any transport and we have to play

a cold and hungry and the will to be so far from this area. as you see our situation is difficult we need help we need housing food and blankets we are in danger inside this case. the price of cryptocurrency bitcoin has hit a record high of $23000.00 it has surged to 30 percent in the past month and more than 200 percent since the start of the year it has had plenty of well documented ups and downs over the years but bitcoins reputation as digital gold has grown of late with the backing of some high profile investors financial expert and r t host max kaiser told us why he thinks it is a stable investment even in the pandemic. big coin is it was going to go to

$400000.00 of going regardless of what what the situation is with the pandemic or regardless of what the situation is between nation states because it will trade similar to a market capitalization of gold the party is caused by paper money and big coin solves the problem of poverty how does big going to fix the problem it capitalizes the banks capitalize the central banks it puts them out of business because everybody has their own bank no paper money has ever survived ever in history over the past 300 years every single form of paper money as either gone completely bankrupt or lost 99 percent of its value not have ever work it's impossible to work paper money it's a it's a faulty idea so we only have really goal but in the 21st century bitcoin is better than goal so big coin is actually pushing gold off the world stage people are

buying big going not goal because it's superior to gold and that's the inflection point that we're on in the 21st century we're at we're witnessing a remarkable transformation of the global economy right now this year it's incredible 35 minutes that's when i'll be back with another look at you news this is our 2 international stay with us. join me everything on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you ben.

problem drugs don't dollars come from unscrupulous dealers but from pharmacies to in every state in the united states we see me very sharp increase in the number of people seeking treatment for addiction to prescription opioids and invented america under the banner of medicine persisted with the pain but instead of trying to wean him off though she just goes after dose after dose after dose and really became his drug dealer so who's to blame patients doctors manufacturers all the government. we have been listening battle is one of the many. that are hoping for octet if. it is taken initiated. at

last we're getting an example like live. in the most particular one i'll be your wife on. this is not being represented the 100 housing one illness. andrea. just will group as one of 8 to.

you know if there's one homeless person in the country it's a bit of a you should not have a civil society a rich society in which people have to sleep on the street earlier big i mean that's just you know.

government is not the solution to our problem government is the problem.

will be our 1st priority presuppose there will be compromise. one of the points that we really felt was important to get across when you're talking about cause and effect is priorities if nobody's making money on it i not a commodity then it has no value and it shouldn't it isn't a priority of the federal government so housing that was just from about people that was not a commodity that was just a bad living up to the responsibilities of the federal government and people have a clean deane's safe in place to live that's not important anymore that's not. your job.