in the stories that shaped the week here at r.g.p. international the developers of russia's put making the vaccine sign an official memorandum of cooperation with astra zeneca they hope that by combining their 2 vaccines the efficacy rate will further rock. a new ward contagious strain of code that has been detected in england causing panic worldwide with more than 40 countries banning arrivals from the u.k. . and victory or a defeat while the u.k. prime minister celebrates the story breaks it deal across the english channel the european union's chief negotiator describes it as a lose lose result. they're

broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow recapping the league's top stories with our weekly program this is r t international now pharma giant astra zeneca and russia's institute have started clinical trials of a joint coronavirus vaccine it combines elements of jabs developed individually by the 2 sides astra zeneca c.e.o. explained why they decided to join forces with the russian team. we have 2 main goal the 1st one is to allow headscarf official notice doctors and nurses to use 11 vaccine all the although for the for the 1st injection and the 2nd to make the alex simpler and the 2nd go on is to hope pretty get better he just when you combine 2 different vaccines i don't think companies are competing against each other everybody's racing against the virus we would need many many vaccines because

there is no one single company that gun can you send of x. into the entire world and some of these vaccines have to be easy to use and they have to be cheap because the low income countries can't afford the expensive rexton we waited on a myriad of the disease when the whole world wanted to go to read it so we on the safety issue are going to be safe around the world oration was asked was america and the other producers but it's equally or something because we just need to work together and it's our national alteration can be just. or all i was thinking about a call we spoke of more on this with 2 experts from the u.k. paul hunter is a professor of medicine and peter smith an epidemiologist they explained why the scientific cooperation between britain and russia is significant. one of the problems with the. i don't know virus the vaccines like this but nick 5 in the oxford is that there's always

a risk that you can develop immunity to the carrier rather than to the target which is what you are wanting for now if you actually makes these 2 that seem so you maybe give one vaccine to start and then the other 134 weeks later then you you get over this problem of developing impunity to the carrier virus and i think there's quite a lot of evidence that actually does work like that and people have shown this works in other areas so to me the compound a nation of the sputnik and the ox so that's there's any current vaccine could well improve its efficacy a lot of greater than the individual vaccines apart now the problem with. biotech bank scenes is that they are card of a street which is going to make it very difficult to deliver in many parts of the

world where it is both the oxford and the the russian vaccine have a much more except of all cold chain in terms of being delivering being able to deliver in many parts of the world we also sat down with the sputnik v.a. vaccine developer he told us how their job differs from others on the global market . we developed a vaccine from the start of receiving funding to registration really quite quickly in 5 months the main reason is that for 25 years or more we have been developing at the gum alay institute a technological platform on which this vaccine preparation can be made we already had a wealth of experience not only the technology of how to do it but before that we had even worked out possible concentrations when you all the dosages needed to obtain an optimal immune response with minimal side effects. the safety of the vaccine has been fully proven on a very similar vaccine though not identical against not only ebola viruses but also

the mers coronavirus so when we were working against covered 19 we were able to use around 70 percent of an existing element one of the indicators by which the effectiveness of a vaccine is most easily measured is the presence of and to bodies in the blood if we proceed from that's experimental data in a similar vaccine against a bowler this protective immunity lasted for 2 years we simply didn't have a long observation period the pfizer vaccine needs to be transported at minus 70 degrees and yours at minus $23.00 rate. minus 18 for now some months down the line i hope that we'll be able to amend the registration certificates that this vaccine can be stored not at minus 18 but the household refrigerator temperature of plus 2 . the side effects don't force you out of action there may be a rash headache muscle discomfort and i think the most noticeable effects may be

your temperature going up to 38 degrees for 2 days to take the vaccine yourself yes on march 30th along with all my employees and you're still alive not just alive but pretty active i vaccinated my 14 year old granddaughter so you violated your own instructions against vaccinating children that's outrageous you were ready to kill your entire family for the sake of a new vaccine i wasn't going to kill them but prove that the vaccine is completely safe. what is the difference between the oxford vaccine that is astra zeneca and the gamma lanes to do vaccine there are a lot of differences but they're not significant oxford and us to seneca went from my point of view along the classic path of working against airborne pathogens our colleagues applied all the rules for creating influenza vaccines to the creation of a vaccine against covered 19 and it seems to me that the epidemiological features of this disease this pathogen were not quite accurately calculated the people at

pfizer also understand this and have made great efforts to modify the r.n.a. so that it would not be recognized as far as i understand by protective proteins but i'm not sure whether my colleagues most to solve all the problems on a large scale artes and. was asking the questions there now meanwhile on wednesday argentina officially approved of the sputnik the jab for emergency use. you know. 300000 doses of the vaccine are on argentinian territory these will be distributed in all the provinces and we will work side by side with the leadership of buenos aires to stop mass vaccination. we are helping argentina which is one of the 1st countries in latin america to receive the russian drug as we say in russia a friend in need is a friend indeed we have that our vaccine helps to save the lives of millions of argentines

a plane carrying argentina's 1st batch of arrived in buenos aires on thursday moscow has said it will provide enough doses for up to 10000000 people earlier this month the argentinean president himself expressed confidence in the russian vaccine and promised he would be the 1st to take it and would. in argentina some raise doubts about the quality of russian science to everyone's downswings vs here in knowledge and tina i would be the 1st one to take that vaccine because i have no doubt about the quality over the vaccine. elsewhere the european union has launched a cross border vaccination program here you can see the 1st jobs being administered under the rollout this comes after the e.u. authorized pfizer's vaccine according to the head of the european commission it has been delivered to all 27 member states contracts have been secured with several drug companies for shipments of more than 2000000000 doses that's actually double

what is needed for the entire blocks population to get an ocular lated also this week the world health organization raised the alarm over a new highly contagious strain of covert. 16 countries have now confirmed their 1st cases of the new coronavirus variant it is believed to have 1st emerged in the u.k. and then spread to europe then the middle east asia and australia on saturday it was detected across the atlantic as well with canada reporting its 1st case the discovery of the new strain prompted many countries to adopt stricter measures more than 50 countries have imposed some level of restriction on arrivals from the u.k. euro tunnel services from england to the continent have been suspended that left hundreds of people stranded in airports and train stations over christmas and the

travel ban also saw more than 4000 trucks stranded for days at the british port of dover things only got moving again on christmas eve but hundreds of drivers are still waiting to cross the border at one point the tensions threatened to turn violent with the police. pete. a lot of people with paul came on the full just to get in and see usenet facilities that toilets and with inferior status quo decide to close this movies on and close it down to anybody using the toilets now when you talk in one screen. thousands of people in the town is going be

a problem. station side every day i am here and that shower head knocking off and i can't cook and i think i am told to me and i have to change i mean i can taste it was nice maybe i did then i guess i am going down to the ground but i don't see that tougher covered restrictions have been imposed within the u.k. to combat a surge in infections and while the british government has said that stricter measures are necessary they are not accused of reacting quickly enough here's the take of journalist and broadcaster neil clark the fact of the matter is that this so-called new strike was not about in september but we had scientists writing about it discussing it in september. and yet the health sector only announces this just a few days before christmas why didn't he make announcement about this in september why didn't they get up in september now so it was predictable what was going to

happen it's also to link up with the other main still we'll get to what the british government is trying to terrify is in iraqi w m d style about this terrible threat but of course the closest trading partners are going to say wow you're sorry we're going to book flights going to stop people coming in from britain if what you say through british government said it why should we have british people coming over to our countries and of course we got the chaos of the whole issue about the about the french blockade et cetera coming in so it really is a total disaster relief that this is the responsibility of the british government. still ahead for you in the program after 4 years of wrangling the e.u. and u.k. finally got their trade deal over the line we get the take of people across britain and that long awaited announcement after a short break this is the week we are trashing.

join me every 1st week on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to us from the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. chemistry has also given us fulfilment in many ways by guaranteeing and abundant food supply if we look at our world today there are still famines but there are political famines are caused by political problems are not caused by an inability to grow food and if we look at infectious diseases if you were in the middle of a pandemic now with a pandemic is killing less than one percent of the people it infects and in past times pandemics could kill 30 to 70 percent of the people that were infected so chemistry has given us much improved quality of life in many ways and then we have to ask well with these unintended consequences that are causing species go extinct

that are causing environmental injustice is how can we make things better because certainly we can handle those things better than we have. welcome back to the weekly right here in arch international now germany remains one of the country's worst affected by the pandemic the state of saxony has registered a disproportionately high share of germany's deaths linked to the crime of virus with crematoria in the region struggling with a body backlog video agency ruptly film the situation.

on thursday the u.k. and the european union it reached a landmark trade deal after 4 years of will they won't they however the chief e.u. brags that in a go shooter described the divorce as a lose lose prime minister johnson though was upbeat about it this is the least. full of fish by the way and i believe it will be the basis of a happy and successful and stable partnership with our friends in the e.u. for years to come yet but genuine dollar to play there is no winner in bracks it's

a lose lose situation to separate especially in the world as it is today england the united kingdom has chosen to be solitary rather than stand together let's look at how london and the e.u. will cooperate from january 1st there will be no tariffs on each other's goods and no limit on trading the u.k. will now control its own borders and has pulled out of the long running a rasmussen student exchange scheme between universities opting for a smaller swap a program politicians will return to westminster to vote on the agreement on wednesday. shortly after the deal was announced scottish 1st minister nicolas sturgeon said that britain has lost more than it has gained from bragg's it she added scotland now has to decide on its future as quote an independent european nation meanwhile the pact has triggered mixed feelings among scots and other britons i think it makes a few of these because if it comes complete so should be just so much hype and

misinformation and media fatigue because it's been going for so long i hate breaks and i think it's a completely retrograde step i think that the feeling of being part of a multinational international. i word looking community i think has been thompson fantastic i didn't support breaks i didn't pull pranks and i have really guides to not be part of you know pretty boy it does make me nervous to think how am i going to get to visit the european cities and you know friends i have to live in spain and in france and other parts of europe it would have been a disaster if there had been a do so very place that but there is a to this is i suppose some people a big christmas present it's just i think if god is really saved then to see it i think we will see a return to the troubles that this is st louis. extremely disappointing. and naive and short songs of government as a for their own short sighted aims as a such a terrible practice of the so you know this country is dreadful but in

a very very sort of i think it's really. funny going on also these years but it sort of begs the question as to whether this arrangement is going to be better than the regime behind him before we left the european union while boris johnson's christmas wish may have come true it has been overshadowed by a tough year of covert closed borders and economic woes saskia taylor looks now at a past 12 months like no other. it was almost as if he wanted to become a me we have so much to look forward to in 2020 it's hard to pin down which one of 2020 stretches he meant the end as negotiations food shortages coronavirus close borders economic collapse like. sending. sending a president who home printer on christmas. yet i feel like christmas has been known and history he might be like remembered as the prime minister. best so

was about a man who wanted to be remembered as the one who got brecht's it done 4 years of preparation for a course he believed in thompson was set up for trial and he even promised back in january that it was up and ready all but done we had ended a debate has run for 3 and a half years some would say 47 years i would even mention the name of the comparable seen. except to say that it begins with billions receding the past behind us well be rose from the past and haunted porus for 11 months that's how long it took to negotiate a deal a deal that his father praxedis claimed could be resolved over a cup of tea 11 months the brink of no deal a nation of disappointed impatient angry people but boris still gave himself a pat on the back we've taken back control of our laws and we've taken back control

of every jot and tittle of regulation in a way that is complete and unfettered who's going to tell him then that this celebration might be a party for one. it sounds like the british team have dropped the ball before the line no wonder they want a christmas eve announcement to hide the fisheries sell out today amidst all the debates and details of the trade deal one fundamental truth remains that at the time of global insecurity we're no longer part of one of history's greatest and most noble projects being nations together to build peace out of the ruins of war. this is a disastrous bragg's it outcome for scottish forwards and like all other aspects of bracks it poised to cortlandt against our will it wasn't just brussels that proved to be bogus on doing fresh from a caribbean holiday and still on a post-election high in the new year boris johnson didn't seem too concerned about a never heard of before virus his message was clear don't exaggerate when barry is

going up. and when there is a risk that new diseases such as corona virus will trigger a panic while it was a pretty quick descent from facts to this. but it's hard not to panic when the person who's supposed to be meeting you flip flops and utahns his way through a crisis to the point his own ministers don't know the rules so make it absolutely clear. distinction. let me i will absolutely get back to christmas would be cancelled actually

christmas is off schools are reopening actually no they're not we're lifting the knocked out actually stay at home little wonder then the confusion on exhaust peroration grew a bit confused because you know it's like things appear in creek and we don't get that much information about what's going on and suddenly boom the new school down we don't know what to do so nobody can use and they say to you cannot use devoted 48 hours so it's so confusing i don't even. know my parents live. close to where we need to so i am allowed to go to you tube but i don't know if i'm really about to be going through. q 4 to q 2 was it a case of bad timing for bojo was 2020 the year you just couldn't shine no matter what or was it the man himself who failed to need one thing's for sure for boris johnson it's been not a hell of a year but rather a year from how. members of the united states space force

have finally been given a name one year after the elite branch was created now you might think that after so long the u.s. top brass would have come up with something truly original. soldiers sailors airmen marines and guardians will be depending on me. and i will be back what i just said.

and now for something completely different jogging machines for lizards just one of the stranger projects the u.s. government has spent money on this year according to a report that states over $50000000000.00 went the way of such initiatives dimitri has been doing the sums. 2020 has been a year to forget for many reasons but it's that time of year so let's reflect

imagine you just blown $54000000000.00 in 12 months it is more important than ever for congress to find its fiscal backbone our debts puts at risk the long term solvency of major programs such as social security and why to pay for test use for covert tests that turn out to be soda bottles to see if hot tubbing a few times a week eases stress yeah those don't seem like good investments but u.s. senator rand paul has published a whole list of all the things you can blow your hard earned money on and what washington apparently did spend it on like $1500000.00 to give a couple of reptiles some cardio researches spent a 1000000 and a half taxpayer dollars to get 6 lizards walk them on a treadmill what's taking x. rays with 3 d. imaging technology and then figure out how their joints moved sure it's fascinating stuff maybe for some but come on $1500000.00 place your bets

on how much it costs to spray drunk rats with. just a tidy sum of $4500000.00 in all seriousness here's exactly what the researchers did in layman's terms they spent 5 weeks giving rats intermittent access to alcohol to get them hooked then they put the rats in a cage and literally sprayed them with book can't urine a predator to simulate trauma then they tested where the males and females responded differently why that's probably something you're wondering right now the answer research into p.t.s.d. and alcoholism among war veterans are barely someone has concluded that surviving a gruesome war is comparable to being sprayed with europe so we've gone from paying people to sit in hearts of trying to get adults to watch less t.v. and box all of this money wasted. and none of it was initially washington this is $54000000000.00 of taxpayer money but look on the bright side at least we can sleep

well now we know that a coke bottle is not a good substitute for a test tube. the way the the united states government has managed its finances throughout this entire thing is absolutely overall completely abysmal it's been nothing short of criminal what the united states government has done throughout this entire pandemic there were a few ok things but overall the bad outweighs the good by a whole lot and it's really made the united states government out for exactly what it is which it is a corporate coup no one ever asked the question are you going to pay for it when it comes to giving money to the pentagon or giving money to weapons contractors or given money to the oil and gas industry no $1.00 ever asks how you going to pay for it but they ask how are you going to pay for it when it comes to giving direct relief to people then all the sudden they're worried about their pocketbook so the

from in about 32 minutes we'll be back with another look at your weekly this is arch international glad to have you with us. well the pandemic no certainly no borders and is blind to nationalities. as america. we don't like seeing the whole world needs to be. judged as commentary classes. we can do better we should be. everyone is contributing way but we also know that this crisis will not go on forever the challenges create the response has been massive so many good people are helping us. it makes us feel very proud that we are in it

together. is your media a reflection of reality. in the world transformed. what will make you feel safe from. the isolation community. are you going the right way or are you being led so. direct. what is true what is faith. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. or a maybe in the shallows. 2020

has been a year like you no wonder no it's a comin crisis changed our lives how we will continue to meet. one of the long things to know that may never. happen it's not in the initial what about couple but i thought it was more because of the actual coming on my own that must be so if you know that it was a family and she. didn't just this in japanese i know that you don't mind it just became is i'm the one that called the shannon mozart generally wouldn't you because you didn't. want us to be a sub sub did it better to just say. well i mean look them up if you know how long should a man coming out of the established should come.