the developers of russians try to make the vaccine sign an official memorandum of cooperation with astra zeneca that combining their 2 vaccines will improve their efficacy. also a new coronavirus variant that's emerged in the u.k. is believed to be around 70 percent more contagious than the current strains of the head of the russian front behind sputnik he says virus mutations are nothing him. here but soon we expect he'll always be patient and actually go for all that best buy for him. in many ways.

and a growing number of countries around the world are banning flights from the u.k. over the new strain meaning that people on both sides of the english channel may struggle to get home for christmas that's already in doubt. they sent me a text saying the train's been canceled you have to get out of the country now face a case of yeah it has to do with my family then i'll be alone for christmas and. a very warm welcome to the program from all of us here at our teach q. and moscow thanks for joining us this hour. joining forces against kobe that britons astra zeneca and russia's gonna last under have just signed an agreement to cooperate in the fight against the coronavirus or join in the studio again by eager stand up with all the details here so tell us more about this partnership so well and essentially that's what it is to huge pharmaceutical companies in russia and

british pharmaceutical giant iced resenting they have decided to join forces in you know boosting the efficiency on efficacy of the scientific term of both vaccines under this agreement it has been announced that the clinical trials have already begun he is how the c.e.o. of astra zeneca described what was achieved today we have 2 main goals the 1st one is to allow your professional nodes doctors and nurses to use 11 vaccine all the other for the for the 1st injection and the 2nd to make the alex simpler and the 2nd goal is to hope pretty get better if you just say when you combine 2 different vaccines i don't think companies are competing against each other everybody is racing against the virus we will need many many vaccines because there is no one single company that can call us and of x. and probably entire world and some of these vaccines have to be easy to use and

they have to be chipped because the low income countries cannot afford the expensive rexton we're on a myriad of this is when the old world where it's got rid of it so we're on a safety for around the world. so the global demand for a vaccine right now is enormous you can't really overestimated but the public needs a reliable vaccine a reliable jab a jab they can trust the have the they have the right to know what they're putting in their body and the have to be sure well it won't make things worse so essentially astra zeneca efficacy right now stands at 70 percent so this is what they're hoping to this is something they're hoping to fix by marrying so to speak 2 different formulas 2 different combinations such corporation international corporation has long been promoted and pushed for by the russian president vladimir putin and this particular memorandum this particular greenmount was signed and

backed by the russian president personally. i am glad to congratulate you on the significance of vent signing the memorandum of cooperation i'm convinced that this commitment to partnership can serve as a compelling example of how science and technology combine to protect the lives and safety of millions of people. so it's been close to a year the world we all have had to live amongst this pandemic so hopefully now we are entering this stage when finally. a few a number of reliable jobs will be available in the market but at the same time we're also hearing about this new strain that's in the u.k. that said to be around 70 percent more infectious then the original do the current vaccines work against it well that's a very good point because viruses they don't just disappear into thin air they just

stay there and so the become just go away and the one particular thing about this type of virus which the corona virus is they mutate they mutate very very quickly and they adapt to different to different world to medicine to 2 pills and so on so this new iteration of the virus it is very concerning and again. it hasn't been studied properly just the very 1st strain of the virus of the corona virus hasn't been studied you know as early as it needs to be there is still hasn't been enough time and this particular new mutation it hasn't been studied at all but the russian scientists are optimistic about sputnik we would prove effective against the new mutation as well because again they know that these are in a type of viruses that they mutate so when developing a vaccine it makes no sense to develop it against one particular type of virus

because there could be dozens over depending on where they are and in which under which circumstances they were infecting people here's how the scientists themselves are putting it have a listen. but this mutation makes orations us tools that america and the other producers but you can lead or something because we just need to work together and international cooperation among competition or off i was thinking about a call alcides you believe that these. games this train just a was to use them against the mutation of the c. and b. or go over to spas and occur we believe that that will lead to high advocacy all of us present if they use this approach but again it still need to be tested and we will do so since upcoming several months sure so we expect some trials to start as early as this year and we expect 3 countries to participate in those clinical

trials. so again now the russian scientists will be able to have a look at the british vaccine and the british scientists they will be able to study rush's vaccines which means some of the brightest minds and also fresh minds will have a look and they will have a fresh look at these these jobs and hopefully something positive and you know something really good comes out of it all and while it's encouraging that we have both of these vaccines and there could be better results even when combining them it hasn't been smooth sailing for either of them has it or no absolutely not both vaccines have. faced. criticism for instance the british astra zeneca has been criticized over transparency because as i've already said people they want to know what they're injecting in their bodies and astra zeneca in their initial press release they weren't very honest they were very transparent about how efficient

their vaccine is because they essentially they said that well those people who got half the dose for them the vaccine was 90 percent effective and those who got a full dose for them the vaccine was only 60 percent effective and didn't make any sense because how can i have the doe's be more efficient and better than a full dose so you just didn't add up and then the so when the american scientists had a look at astra zeneca they found out the during the clinical trials essentially it wasn't about the dosage it wasn't about the amount of 0 injected but rather about the age groups because the half the dose the vaccine was 90 percent efficient only in a group of people where there were no people older than 50 years then 50 or 55 i think and there was another group where more senior citizens were present as well and in that group the vaccines efficiencies to the only 60 percent this is something that

astra zeneca. did not disclose and its initial press release so there was a very it was a pretty big scandal because of it the russian vaccine again is in dispute is no stranger to criticism as well because essentially the russian scientists have been criticised over the size of the pool of people that they initially tested where the 1st phase of the clinical trials was well was just that they did so essentially but this is how the russian scientists are responding to this criticism both have been critical. as a just critical because you don't know all of the facts and all information sometimes a critical and purposeful competitor for reasons for geopolitical reasons what you've seen as it's ever by staff there is just less also of all arguments by the critics so 1st of all this or we're feeling or maybe evidence all that well it's

clear that small because it's very different from others frankly we believe it's better in many ways than others so if there was criticism what about phase 3 and if she ends up ob there are but few manufacturers also registered civic seen on emergency use basis justice russia did before all of the case we had completed and some were questions about africa as well we demonstrated advocacy more than 90 percent on point it will solve and 746 people who participated in clinical trials and definitely saved. also another important detail is that in russia people are already getting their vaccines they are already getting jobs for instance it's a gradual basically the vaccine is being made available to the public here in russia gradually so for instance the 1st the 1st world the medics they got the vaccine 1st now this pool of people who are eligible to get a vaccine that has been well expanded journalists for instance are now in this pool

for for example i already got a text message saying that hey you work you are a journalist so now you can get a vaccine and also this for for the for the russians it's free. so the vaccine is already is already out there you know you know that russia is already building up the collective immunity to the virus also speaking of international corporation germany has already also announced that the we are ready to become one of the producers of russia. and this new agreement between russia and british astra zeneca it's yet another step in a very good direction into you know casting politics aside and just you know cooperating in finding something that would allow us to put this whole pandemic behind us hopefully the good news continues to roll in the r.t.c. goes down and thank you for bringing us that report. we're now going to bring in

live professor of molecular and khalidi at warrick medical school lawrence young for more on this now the russian vaccine developers say that sputnik the would be effective against this new corona virus strain that we've been hearing about how could they know about that at this early stage. well what we know is that the vaccines that have been developed around the world including the right the vaccine from russia are all based on the the protein the spike protein and we know from deet recent data that this new variant that's a result in probably in the u.k. has some changes in that is quite smart protein but those changes will not affect the vaccine because when you vaccinate with despite protein you get loads of different antibody responses and many of these will be to parts of the swipe protein there aren't affected by this variation so even though we know that variants are rising all the time in this virus clear of the various vaccines that

have been developed around the world should be very effective irrespective of these changes now this new strain has also been found in other european countries at this point in time and even australia is it just a matter of time until it spreads around the whole world how worried should we be or is this just what's going to happen. i think it's just what's going to happen i mean since the very beginning of the pandemic it's worth being aware that many variants of this virus of occurred this one seems to be more transmissible and it will inevitably spread so we already know that as you mentioned there are other parts of europe and indeed even in australia and south africa where similar variants have been described and it's difficult to tease apart with and this is just because the virus is finding itself in the right place at the right time and just spreading as it will do naturally or it does have enhanced ability to infect individuals but irrespective of that we know that it's

a vaccine will work in this provides more impetus really to get vaccines out to as many people as possible as soon as possible. does that mean it quite likely that we're going to see more strains like this that might be a more n factious like this one is around the world or or is that something we should be worrying about your we've already seen that so very early on in the pandemic there was another variant of the virus in the spider protein that again looks like it's more transmissible so the suspect the subscription is will see more of the ease there is a slight concern that as we vaccinate more people there might be some effects of the vaccine in further driving changes in the in the virus but the most important thing is to get is to get as many people vaccinated as possible and in the meantime for everybody to be as cautious as possible so this virus transmits in the same way even though it's changed it's still spread in the same way and that means that

frequent hand washing wearing a face masks and socially distancing is still as important as ever we've been speaking with lawrence yang professor at warrick medical school thank you for your time and your comments. thank you. russia is the latest country to join a growing list of states closing their borders to the u.k. because of the new coronavirus strain u.k. prime minister boris johnson will chair an emergency response meeting on monday a new coronavirus variant is believed to be around 70 percent more transmissible than current strains are shoddy at woodstock's reports from london. well 2 days after boris johnson the prime minister announced his latest set of restrictions it's almost as though the united kingdom is plummeting into chaos countries that neighbor the united kingdom have not quite gone to the extent of shutting the borders down entirely they're doing all they can very extreme measures to try and

contain this new strand of covert 1000 in the united kingdom and not to bring it to their shores now france's freezed transport links with the united kingdom for at least a 48 hours germany is not quite following suit but all travel is being banned and suspended until december 31st that's followed by many countries both within europe and outside europe including the netherlands belgium and italy and further afield canada colombia and saudi arabia with that list of countries growing by the minute for thousands of people both sides of the english channel are struggling to get back home in time for christmas i live in paris and i go with. christmas with my family i'm heading back to france to see my family. for more than 4 months which is to do with my family and. my name is meant to be evening. but they sent me a text like 2 o'clock this afternoon saying a train's been cancelled you have to get out of the country now basically if you

want to go there was a glimmer of hope there from the prime minister a few weeks ago when he promised brits that they could celebrate christmas with their loved ones at least for around 4 or 5 days around christmas however that festive joy was absolutely wrenched from many people within the united kingdom with boris johnson announcing that christmas a century was cancelled at least for those in the southeast of the country by saying their slogan returns to stay at home and no indoor household mixing simply saying christmas is counsel for many people now this is all because of this new strain this new super strand of 19 which the health secretary. has said it's completely out of control you said recently that the virus was under control is it no it's not the new variant is out of control and we need to bring it under control following boris johnson's announcement on saturday thousands of londoners

were scrambling to get out of the capital to avoid having a lonely christmas this year because many parts of the country remain in loose a set of are strict in the south but of course the whole idea of clamping down in the south was to try and restrain this latest strand of the coronavirus so many people in the north are calling londoners they have fled from the capital incredibly selfish and totally irresponsible but for those stuck in the capital they would argue that the government's handling of this pandemic has long been something that needs to be called out on and criticize for mixed messages and indeed broken promises. yet you would be like you probably think you might be like remember this the prime minister that's where i think you go with the basic you probably just claim it's full well despite this is verity of these measures some people online on twitter especially

have managed to see the funny side. well it seems this mutated version of the corona virus is spreading rapidly across the united kingdom and even have seen the 1st case come out of the united kingdom and has been detected and it's only as well so while boris johnson may be seen as the grinch that stole christmas at least christmas this year effectively being counseled there is a glimmer of hope and that comes in the form of that vaccination hopefully a gift from santa will be that christmas is back on track at least next year award winning journalist john pilger talks about the coded care home crisis in the u.k. and his latest interview on artie's going underground you can check out that

interview in full at our website or to dot com but for now here's a short clip one thing stuck in my mind and that was the amnesty report on the early october so said that 18 and a half. elderly people were discharged from hospitals into care and they died. they died from code if that's not one of the great civil crime of our time i don't want to you if people remember nothing else they should not forget those people those 18000 people vulnerable people to not have access to the relatives many of them who died . and the way we treated those people and i say we i say that advisedly i'm talking about actually the government the government that is

to straw good. public health in this country for a number of years in 2016 it was a major drool about a pound make not only nothing was done it was covered up they didn't publish the results of. u.s. regulators have approved a 2nd covert vaccine for emergency use raising hopes of an end to the pandemic a madonna job is being rolled out alongside the one from pfizer and biotech which has also been given the green light in the u.k. but despite the apparent breakthroughs that manufacturers are facing a wall of public reluctance in the us the latest poll shows only 64 percent of the population are willing to take a covert vaccine that falls well short of the 70 percent that scientists say is needed to gain herd immunity there's also a high level of skepticism in europe a survey in the science journal nature found that only 54 percent of people would

take the shot in france and italy the figure is 65 percent on the u.k. more than half of respondents said they were concerned about possible side effects earlier my colleague collin bray discussed with our guests what might be behind the mistrust. for this particular vaccine there's a few reasons why people are skeptical one is that the safety procedures have been very much truncated for the strug and compromised they've skep the animal tests and the observation period for humans subjects is very very low and it's also a very new type of technology this am or any which has never really been used before the vaccine has not been rushed through and let me explain why in this case this was a global effort and global pandemic and if we came in a bottomless pit of money therefore it was able to do it in a short time not because we were cutting corners but because all the normal

barriers the bureaucratic nonsense of funding not being able to find that the the people to do the experiments on except were all and abled and that's why we've got the vaccine record time and see all the politicians making it worse i guess the politicians are partly to blame because if you look at the data that people are available to that's available online it seems completely our odds with what the politicians 'd are saying is as necessary i mean you can't tell from the data from one region to another where is how the heavy law going where it's had our soft one where is how to my mask and mandy where is not the data doesn't seem to back up what we're being told is good for us what we as experts scientists need to do is take the front stage and talk about our how the vaccine works how it produces immunity what it does what it doesn't do and carry the people with us also these

companies are not liable for damages so those who are of an anti of actually persuasion can say or there is something spooky going on here you know usually if you buy a product and it damages. then you're able to sue the company for damages and no drug is completely safe but at least this form some sort of counter balance against companies skimping on safety you don't just immunize and forget you immunize put it in the g.p. records and national how slow is how to record and you follow these group up and you follow it up to seduce sleep over a long period of time to look out for unknown unexpected unusual signs and symptoms in time we will not how well the vaccines are performing and then we will be able to tell immunized therefore protected and protected for a long time or not. it rockets were fired at the u.s.

embassy in baghdad on sunday the attack in the iraqi capital screens on trigger the embassies defense system the compound received minor damage and one iraqi security guard was reportedly injured it comes ahead of next month's anniversary of the u.s. killing of iranian general solomonic amid fears of reprisals by pro iran groups in iraq. and there was also an attack in the afghan capital where it car bombing killed 9 people on sunday 20 others were injured among them a member of parliament terror attack comes as a new report by u.s. watchdog reveals that defense equipment handed over to the afghan government has been lost track of r.t. to me looks at the possible implications. the pentagon has yet again lost track of its toys according to a new report by the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction the department of defense lost track of quote some of the most sensitive articles provided to the afghan military the last gear includes night vision devices

surveillance systems and even controls for laser guided explosives the sensitive equipment was supposed to be inventoried by the us every year to ensure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands but apparently that's exactly what happened after the pentagon failed to keep count of this precious gear the command has never met its 100 percent inventory requirement and is unlikely to ever do so because the security situation in afghanistan prevents some inventories from taking place the report found that in 2019 and afghan forces filed over 3000 change of use requests for the transferred articles almost half of which were captured by enemy forces and the others destroyed damaged or simply lost however the pentagon doesn't seem to be too broken up about the whole ordeal nothing has actually changed in the way the u.s. keeps track of its foreign military aid despite constant promises to do better over the years the pentagon has lost track of thousands of weapons and billions of

dollars of foreign military aid and once in awhile the lethal cargo ends up in the hands of the terrorists. the perfect. the pentagon even gets coronavirus relief funds and even those get misplaced one would think the scale of carelessness would inquire some serious reform but so far everything seems to stay the same. and the pentagon maintains its several $100000000000.00 annual budget to the frustration of many with little to no accountability it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the u.s. doesn't really care where its weapons and funds end up just as long as there's constant demand for them i think the problem has historically been that once you

get into. the far reaches of the country a lot a lot of the inventory just goes missing it's not properly inventoried and it passes from and and and eventually u.s. forces journal you lose track of what the human sense of the big quip such as your night vision that's a wrap up of the day's top news for now and don't forget you can always find us on many of your favorite social media platforms like twitter and facebook for up to the minute reports. narrator in bed barely got married another researcher is to be. married. there is weapon

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