in the day's top news the developers of russian sputnik vicodin vaccine signed an official memorandum of cooperation with astra zeneca and the hope that combining their 2 vaccines will boost their efficacy. also a new coronavirus variants that emerged in the u.k. is believed to be around 70 percent more contagious than current strains at the head of the russian fund behind sputnik he seeks to dispel fears. it works you're always going to be subject to the old mutations and we've actually got them all just quietly days from war and. in many ways.

that new coded mutation prompts a growing list of countries to ban flights from the u.k. all around all cross channel traffic leaving goods and people stranded over christmas they sent me a text saying the train's been canceled you have to get out of the country now basically just to do with my family and not be alone for christmas. welcome to the program and a happy monday to you all this is our 2 international bring you your live news update this hour britain's astra zeneca and russia's camelias center have signed an agreement to cooperate in the fight against the run a virus joint clinical trials to begin just days from now we're joined live in the studio by our love with all the details so tell us more what's the thinking behind combining these 2 vaccines well jacki basically the 2 companies well rather russian research institute a brew. pharmaceutical giant astra zeneca they have decided to well to join their

forces in making this new vaccine against the corona virus more effective as effective as it can be and they have signed an agreement is so cool the memorandum and they are said to begin joint clinical trials a very very shortly because the 2 basically they will be trying to marry the 2 different formulas and to make the job as efficient as possible have a listen to how the sea of astra zeneca what was achieved today we have 2 main goals the 1st one is to allow care professionals doctors and nurses to use 11 vaccine all the other for the 1st injection and the 2nd to make the our life 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 would need many many vaccines because there is no one single company that can produce and of x. and probably entire world and some of these vaccines have to be easy to use and they have to be cheap because the low middle income countries cannot afford the expensive rexton we are on a period of this is when the old world but it's got rid of it so we are. around the world. so again it's about making the vaccine as reliable as possible because right now astra zeneca is the efficacies it's a scientific term as to how well the vaccine is protecting the host from the virus right now astra zeneca efficacies stands at around 70 percent which is world it's a good number but again it could be much much better the producers of the russian vaccine sputnik we are placing in its efficacy at around 90 to 95 percent

and such international corporation has been promoted and pushed for by the russian president vladimir putin himself and here's how he reacted to world besides signing this memorandum. i am glad to congratulate you on the significance of dent signing the memorandum of cooperation i'm convinced that this commitment to a partnership can serve as a compelling example of how science and technology combine to protect the lives and safety of millions of people. so both vaccines will now get a fresh look from some of the world's best minds of the british scientists will have a look at the russian sputnik vice versa hopefully something really good and really reliable comes out which will comes out of this partnership which will allow us to put this whole pandemic thing to history what about when it comes to this new highly infectious corona virus strain that we're hearing about how confident can we

be that the vaccines that we have will work against it well people are obviously on edge because of this new mutation but the thing to understand about this particular corona virus its type of the type of this infection it's an r. and a it's a so-called are an ape infection r.n.a. virus and one of the main treats of these viruses is that they mutate very rapidly so essentially there could be dozens of different variations of this 1000 virus and it only it only depends as to which part of the world it has been well mutating and developing and infecting people and how so basically it could develop its own immunity against certain medication and so on and so forth and this is something but i should say this is something that any vaccine producer any scientist would keep in mind and will keep in the equation because it doesn't make any sense to

make a vaccine against only one particular strain of the virus because again there could be many more and which is one strain of the virus now say 6 months from now on who. mutate and develop some different traits so this is something that the producers of the vaccine again that they would something with the keep in mind so here is how these scientists behind russia's putin agree they have well basically they are ready to reassure the world that the vaccine will most likely work but this mutation makes orations astra zeneca another produces what you call lead or something because we just need to work together and it's our national operation more competition or of our thinking about a quarter. believes that these fish are against the strain just that was the other mutation of the c. and b. or the over this past was america we believe that it will lead to africa see. astra

zeneca if they use this approach but again it still need to be tested and we will lose us in the 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 well again you as you can have the scientists there putting their trust into this new agreement into this cooperation between russian and british specialists. now when it comes to these 2 vaccines that we have at this point it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing for them has it well absolutely astra zeneca vaccine it has faced its own share of criticism has been centered around its average efficacy of 70 percent of the company behind the vaccine astra zeneca has been criticized for not being transparent when releasing information about how the test of this vaccine because essentially they said that

a full dose was less efficient than a half dose and it didn't make any sense because how can of all those be not as effective it should be more it has to be more effective than the than half the dose and then it turned out when american scientists had a look at this they found that basically it proved to be less efficient in elderly among the elderly people among the people who are 5060 years old and so on and that was something emitted in the initial press report by astra zeneca when it comes to sputnik it has also been criticized people have been pointing out and claiming that the testing that it didn't go through all the necessary phases of testing before going to the market and what but the scientists behind sputnik the they have addressed this criticism have a listen. both have been critical. as a just critical because you don't know all of the facts and those information

sometimes a critical and purposeful competitive for instance when geo political reasons what you've seen as it's ever by staff there is just less also goal arguments have by the critics so 1st of all this or we're seeing 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 it's always great this is what about face 3 and we've seen zob there are a few manufacturers also registered civic scene on emergency use basis justice russia did you for all of these 3 have completed zones and were questions about africa so well we demonstrated advocacy more than 90 percent on point it will solve and 746 people who participate in clinical trials and definitely saved. because but again most importantly both astra zeneca and the russians they have put their cards on the table and now basically independent

people you know object to can objectively look and study both vaccines and put all the marketing all the politics aside and just genuinely make the job better. thank you for joining us in the studio with all the latest on that lady vaccine cooperation lauren song a professor of molecular oncology at work medical school told us that the existing covered vaccines are likely to be effective against the latest strain. we know from date recent data that this new variant that's a reason probably in the u.k. has some changes in that's why protein with the vaccines that have been developed around the world are all based on that those changes will not affect the vaccine because when you vaccinate you get loads of different antibody responses and many of these will be to parts of least 5 protein that aren't affected by this variation so even though we know that variants are arising all the time in this virus the

various vaccines that of been developed around the world should be very effective irrespective of these changes. russia has joined a growing list of countries banning flights from the u.k. after the discovery of that new corona virus strain it's believed to be 70 percent more transmissible than earlier variants and prime minister boris johnson will chair an emergency response meeting on the crisis later today our. 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 but they're doing all they can very extreme measures to try and contain this new strain of 1000 in the united kingdom and not to bring it to the 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 in 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 always write for my family i'm heading back to france to see my family couldn't see for more than 4 months just to do that my family and. my. name. but they sent me a text like 2 o'clock this afternoon saying no trains 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

that off once 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 sense. it 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 covert 19 which the health secretary has said is 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 restrictions 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. probably just playing this week. 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 seen the fast case come out of the united kingdom and has been detected and it's near as well so while boris johnson may be seen as the grinch that stole christmas at least christmas this year effectively being cancelled there is a camera 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 journalist and broadcaster neil clark has told us he's not surprised by the international and domestic reaction to the british covered response the fact of the matter is that this so-called new stroke was not about in september we had scientists writing about it discussing it in september. and yet the last one called

the health secretary only says this just a few days before christmas why didn't he make announcement about this in september why didn't he get up in september those big dig up now so it was ever the good of all what was going to happen it's also to link up with the other main story will ever get to where the british government is trying to terrify is in iraqi w m d star about this terrible explosion because the our closest trading partners are going to say wow you're sorry we're going to block flights we're going to stop people coming in from what you say through the british government said it was we have british people coming over to our countries and of course we got the chaos of the whole issue about the. french blockade etc coming in so it really is a total disaster relief of the disaster is the responsibility of the british government. latest scrutiny against the british government follows a long list of missteps in the covert crisis award winning journalist john pilger spoke to r.t. about the care home crisis in the u.k.

his full interview on going underground is available over at r.t. dot com but here's a short clip one thing stuck in my mind and that was the amnesty report and the early october 1st said that 18 and a half 1000 elderly people were discharged from hospitals into care homes and they died they died from coated if that's not one of the great civil crimes of our time i don't know what to you if people remember nothing else they should not forget those people those 18000 people phone robel 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 over a number of years in 2016 there was a major drool about a pandemic not only nothing was done it was covered up they didn't publish the results of. the u.s. drug regulator has approved a 2nd covered vaccine for emergency use boosting hopes of an end to the pandemic and a day or night job is being rolled out alongside the pfizer biotech chart which has also been given the green light in the u.k. but despite the apparent breakthroughs manufacturers are facing a wall of public reluctance in the us the latest polls show only 64 percent of the population are willing to take a covert vaccine well below the 70 percent threshold that scientists say is needed to gain herd immunity on france a survey by the science journal nature found that only 54 percent of people were willing to take the job and italy the figure is 65 percent and in the u.k.

more than half of respondents said they were concerned about possible side effects earlier my colleague can break discuss the possible causes of the mistrust with our guests. 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 uncompromised they've skipped 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 immorally which is 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 a 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 etc were all unable and that's why we've got the vaccine in record time and so they all the politicians making it worse i guess the politicians are partly to blame because if you look at the people who are available. 2 that's available online it seems completely are all 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 logs don't where is hard are 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 antivirus persuasion can see all there is something spooky going on here you know usually if you buy a product and it damages you then you're able to sue the company for damages and no drug is completely safe but at least this form some sort of counterbalance against companies skimping on safety you don't just immunize and forget you immunize put it in the g.p. records and national health service health records and you follow this group up and you follow it up assiduously 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 immunised therefore protected and protected for a long time or not. recent cyber attacks on multiple us federal agencies have caused

a stir in the news for the last week the us government has still not definitively determined who was behind the attacks but members of the incoming biden administration have to go beyond mere sanctions when the copper is identified. i think in terms of the measures that a by an administration would take it's not just sanctions it's also steps and things we could do to degrade the capacity of foreign actors to repeat this sort of attack or worse still engage in even more dangerous attacks and we don't know fully what happened the extent of it and frankly we don't know fully for sure who did it joe biden i know we'll have a robust response once we find out the perpetrator and the extent of it in all politicians from both major parties alongside us media have already rushed to judgment on naming the perpetrator upon that hears artiest all quarter. more russian hacking hysteria leave it to the mainstream media to sneak it in under a month before trump's exit from the white house russia is behind

a cyber attack massive cyber attack the brits believed to be the work of the russians russia's massive cyber attack yes the elusive russian hackers whose existence is still a mystery have once again made their entrance into america's political arena this was a very significant effort and i think it's through a case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was a russian if that indeed is the most activity the national cyber security agency has yet to lay the blame on anyone entity for breaching several private companies and key u.s. government departments including the treasury homeland security and even nuclear security coming from pompei although the anti russia hysteria is a bit of surprise because his boss seems to think it's just a diversion the cyber hack is far greater in the fake news media than in actuality i have been fully briefed and everything is well under control russia russia russia is the priority chance when anything happens because lynching media is for mostly financial reasons petrified of discussing the possibility that it may be china it

may you think after the countless wasted hours since the election hacking accusations of 2016 trying to prove russian collusion with trump trying to find the russian hacker smoking gun the political establishment might want to try something new but actually this time even the republicans are just as much out for blood as the democrats where the president has a blind spot when it comes to russia and so you can expect that that's the response that he would have the cia the national security administration and others who looked at this well there's no question has come from russia all indications point to russia for the present united states either tries to deflect or is not willing to call out. the adversary as we make this after a beautician he is not making our country safer for the president to once again so see full it's an eerie. go over the presents are you see where he also suggested when the russians cracked erections and when he 16 that might have been china so

what exactly is it that keeps reviving this fear of russian hackers if there was something for people to be scared of surely there would be some evidence of it unless there's other motives at work here this isn't new right this is exactly what us foreign policy has been for decades which is unsubstantiated or just false claims about a foreign country to bed pave the way for some sort of international idiocy and what we're seeing over here is a dangerous echo of that exact same behavior which is assigning blame without any kind of evidence without any kind of backing with no public scrutiny with no transparency of any kind to me it's been used as a distraction and then after the extensive extensive research on russia the every kind of legal and and technological scrutiny of russia during after the 2016 election you know there was something there we would have found it the fact that i'll bet an investigation a bad scope turned up basically nothing so just to me that we're looking at

a scare tactic not not really a meaningful analysis of the situation. u.k. home office has admitted it's lost track of 37000 migrants of the last 30 years think that asylum seekers people overstaying their visas and those who cross the border illegally chairman of migration watch u.k. has called the situation a failure of the system. this is a shocking failure it is ridiculous to intercept those crossing the channel illegally or after they emerge from the back of lorries only to turn them loose to disappear into the undergrowth of the shadow economy. a home office spokesperson has said it's likely that many of the people have left the country for those still in the u.k. there is a national tracing team dedicated to finding migrants that have dropped off the radar for blacks at party and ukip member for scotland they have coburn believes the u.k. should take a firmer approach to migration normal individuals are stopped at customs or stopped

immigration and their checks work out and there were little terrorists or whatever but these people are right they're not checked and no one seems to want to chase them up but this is going on for years there's no desire in the part of the government to stop migration and this is the reason one of the major reasons that people voted to leave the european union too many people are just allowed to stay and the government she said no it's just too much trouble it gives them bad publicity and they want to get the reelected so therefore they're not chasing it up it's expensive it was a lot of police manpower you must control migration for the sake of the health service and for the sake of our social security system the whole thing will collapse if we don't control migration they have to be firm about to say no you will not be allowed to stay in the country you will not be allowed to work and you should not people should not be employing people who do not have the right to stay

in the united kingdom that's our global news update for this hour but don't forget you can always had to our website r.t. dot com for the details on all the stories and many more. television some demonstrators right now the propaganda machine. it's always russia. going to go go go go. i'm sure and it's. like.

they still would come. to the way rush. limbaugh . time after time c. and welcome to going on the ground the team and i will be back with a brand new season starting on my birthday january 13th but until then we will be

showing some of your favorite shows from this season. i'm joined now from tucson arizona by one of the most cited intellectuals on our. the father of modern linguistics american president you know i'm trying to escape now thanks so much for coming back on the show so what is the global green new deal that's the new book climate crisis and the global green new deal and why is it to you the most important political plan in all of human history we're now facing a number of crises serious ones one crisis is the threat of climate environmental catastrophe we must move to net 0 emissions within a few decades. would goal of the green new deal is to provide the means to do that.