strikes a milestone deal with china removing barriers to investment comes after years of talks and in spite of resistance from the u.s. . also this hour america confirms its 1st case of a more contagious british strain of corona virus we look at a challenging year for the country worst hit by the pandemic. plus the british government puts most of it in line under the toughest level of covert restrictions as case number spiral falling we've discovery of a highly contagious new strain. and argentina's president warns a smear campaign and trade war against the sputnik ivy covered vaccine is hampering global distribution as the country starts to look bring russians down. i remember

our colleagues who died because they worked in the health sector i'm happy because this should be the end and i'm eternally grateful on behalf of all of the nurses. this is art international coming to you live from the russian capital where it's just turned 7 pm into the program. the e.u. and china have struck a landmark deal after almost 7 years of talks it opens up the chinese market to european investment while giving beijing and inroad to some strategic european projects are to charlotte n.c. has the details place dealers almost being said is in the making between the e.u. and showing up and they've really pushed the boat to get it done before the end of 2020 essentially it means that there is the opportunity for the e.u. for investment in certain industries this is companies within the e.u. to be able to invest in. areas of china before it had barriers around them such as

the financial sector the health sector for china it means that there is this possibility of investing in renewable energy so this is something on the table for each side in this and this deal has been described by many as being the most ambitious deal that china has ever struck with a nation country tomorrow's post covered world needs a strong e.u. china relationship to build forward better but this requires cooperation reciprocity and trust especially in our trade and investment relationship but this deal comes with a huge amount of criticism many have said that the e.u. is far too soft on china on issues such as labor rights and human rights in fact some e.u. countries said they were unhappy with the fact that the e.u. hasn't done enough to secure those issues these countries will countries such as the netherlands and belgium and the was also criticism from some e.u.

parliament ariens who said you know essentially this didn't tackle issues such as hong kong and that of the weaker muslims in china e.u. china investments agreements we came to access to the documents and it's extremely light and human rights and slavery as i feared the french declinations on putting an end to forced labor as a condition for a deal which just empty words hate from the land the european commission president well just as a bro you should raise recent human rights issues when you talk to see what they steal is also to likely to rub up the wrong way the new incoming president of the united states joe biden just a few weeks ago the e.u. said he wanted to coordinate its interaction its issues with china with the poison a demonstration and yet just weeks before he takes office it's decided to push ahead with this deal some of those who have suggested that china. going soft on the

e.u. in a way of perhaps ramping up those tensions the main deliverable from the jim's point of view was to drive a wedge in transatlantic relations and brussels appears to have complied it's just mind boggling that the you would even consider rushing to a green investment pact with beijing weeks before biden takes office after claiming for several years that they wanted transatlantic cooperation on china while the e.u. has rejected that criticism saying that washington has done its own deals over trade and investment with china under the trumpet ministration so that's boy the boy but regardless of the geopolitics surrounding this deal what is clear is that angle of merkel wanted to get it done before the e.u. presidency transfers to another country next year and it seems for her because she believes that this gives the e.u. a more level playing field the gates china that trumps everything else.

the u.s. has identified its 1st case of a highly contagious new strain of kobe that 1st found in the u.k. it has now been detected in colorado and this comes as the state of new york braces for a new surge in cases we have been talking about potential for spread during christmas as america struggles to deal with the effects of the pandemic are to correspondent philip martin looks at an especially tough year for the city dubbed the epicenter of the crisis. they call it the big apple and in 2020 that apple got a giant one minute and that worm is known as ovid when a national emergency was 1st declared in the city back in march many panicked. stores soon had empty shelves.

the hospital soon had capacity and emergency tents were set up in central park. there was a shortage of protective equipment like masks and hand sanitizer health care workers took to the streets to protest they're told to use one man has only grown old boy. so if you want to talk about the row. it's part of that i mean if you send at the center of the epicenter it's really it's been tough it's been one of the hardest moments in my life it's been really challenging and i'm burnt out we're we come in every day and are not gain support from our managers are you know our government is telling us we can wear

a simple bandana we don't have many noted that in circumstances like this we had local officials blaming everyone but themselves we was the whole international health community we was the whole national shows of experts the w.h.o. d.n.i. the c.d.c. the whole alphabet soup of agencies we was are very we were you. where was the intelligence community with the brief videos of trucks used as temporary morgue studio an overflow of dead bodies became a horrifying emblem of the era. new york city's heart island became a graveyard amid the overflow of dead bodies. one

of the ugliest scandals involved nursing homes at the end of march andrew cuomo the new york state governor ordered coated patients to be sent to nursing homes for the elderly now this order was revised on the 11th of may but it was far too late the death toll in new york's nursing homes was approximately 4800 people remember that the elderly are the most vulnerable such a poorly calculated move is pretty hard to forgive this thing is not going away sir 6300 people died in new york nursing homes that is the most in this country really needs to be able to challenge this wish to leave you would do it you're in a little bit of criticism of your very much like there was a glimmer of hope over the summer but then a 2nd wave came when it got cold the new lock downs have had

a devastating effect on the economy restaurant owners and workers have taken to the streets. while the state was crashing and burning with the rising body count andrew cuomo took the opportunity to write a book about his personal achievements. in the. 2021 doesn't look like it's bringing any relief either national health officials are warning us that january could be devastating without substantial mitigation the middle of january could be

a really dark time for us some say that the lockdown was imposed too late others are saying that cuts in health care facilities and the closing of hospitals over the past decade have played a role regardless of why there's no question the 2020 will go down as one of the worst years in the history of new york city. r.t. new york. millions of people across england are about to be placed under the toughest level of covert restrictions known as tear for their case numbers have soared since a new highly infectious strain of the virus was detected you can cross now to our party's shaadi i would start shit with the details shot it tell us more about these new measures. well the key message from the government is to act now of course we've had numerous times throughout this pandemic and here we go yet again and that's because the virus is spiraling out of control as a result things are going to get a lot more strict across england with many more regions entering the type to set of

restrictions so. has just announced these latest set of restrictive measures and he said that millions more people will be placed on detail for category and he's described as a move that's absolutely necessary. the new variant means that 3 quarters of the population on now going to be. and almost all of the country into 3 and i know that 23 and measures place a significant burden on people and especially on businesses affected but i'm afraid it's absolutely necessary because of the number of cases that we've see. so as of one minute past midnight here in the united kingdom all regions will be entering turf or that includes the north east of england northwest they will be joining the southeast of england and in fact that takes a total of 3 quarters of the population will be in the type to set of restrictions of course the rules in that area is to stay at home now experts are warning there

that to 4 is not even going far enough and many say that what's needed is a full scale national lockdown to try and take control of this virus nothing on that though from westminster nor was there any talk of a to 5 of course we've heard some rumors circulating over the past few days that potentially there could even be a tear 5 coming out of all of this nothing on that either today from the government but this latest set of tide to set of restrictions that's just been announced as much to do with today being the 3rd day the 3rd consecutive day that we've seen the daily cases absolutely at a peak so yesterday saw 53000 today we've seen 50000 new cases and that really basically means that this 2nd wave of 19 is much harsher and much worse than the 1st wave and of course we've just been seeing in the last few weeks these 2 new tunes strands of covert 191 seemingly even originating here in the u.k.

one apparently have written a thing in south africa all of this so is placing a huge amount of pressure on the n.h.s. many say that the n.h.s. the ta it and frustrated but it's also coming being quite apparent in the hospitals within themselves we're seeing a shortage of. but also a shortage of bed spaces as well in fact many facilities up and down the country are declaring major incidents we're seeing that doctors are being placed in impossible situations and at some 7 cases patients are being treated in ambulances and even having to wait up to 24 hours for a bed space. god talks to us this week to get christian students how to be more patients. going to get to cabinet control groups are having to make incredibly difficult decision to decide who gets an ambulance and in what order quite often with huge numbers of people waiting for ambulances and they have nobody left to send. well working behind the scenes is the medical and science professionals and

some good news coming from them because the latest vaccination has just been approved in the united kingdom by the u.k.'s medicines regulator that's the oxford university astra zeneca vaccination being the 2nd one here in the united kingdom following of course the pfizer biotech vaccine just a few weeks ago so studies show so far that the full 2 doses provides around 62 to 90 percent efficacy the biotech there was much further ahead and much further advanced when it comes to the effectivity of it because after a top up that's around 95 percent even so the united kingdom has ordered 100000000 doses the 1st batch could be rolled out as soon as next week a huge improvement on the biotech vaccination is that this latest one only needs to be stored in room temperature and normal fridge temperature as opposed to minus 70 degrees so this one is much more easily transported as with the vaccination this

one also is going to be abiding by a priority list at the top of the list of courses the over 80 is the elderly but also staff on the frontline as well much like the when the united kingdom 1st approved the bio on tech vaccination the e.u. said actually the u.k. is really rushing things through and the e.u. will be taking their time with things. we need additional data about the quality of the vaccine and after that the company has to formally apply. but even with this vaccination is ready difficult to be quite positive here in the united kingdom of course britain has been dumped play by the end after the last few weeks it's easy to see why remember just a few months ago boris johnson promised the u.k. that it would be no more by christmas and really we've already done christmas and it couldn't be us. or to shoddy edward stasi reporting live from london thank you.

at least 20 people have been killed and over 60 injured in a wave of explosions and gunfire in the yemeni port city of aden. the 1st attack happened at the airport just after a plane carrying newly appointed yemeni government officials flew in from saudi arabia a local t.v. channel caught the 1st one on camera as you can see people were disembarking from the aircraft at the time and it was followed up by gunfire and several smaller explosions local reporters say the airport was hit by mortar in-grown strikes passengers were driven straight to the presidential palace where another explosion reportedly took place so far no group has claimed responsibility but officials are blaming hit the rebels who have been at war with the saudi yemeni government for almost 6 years now. and this comes right after the u.s.

state department gave the green light to a $290000000.00 arms deal with saudi arabia the state department has made a determination approving a possible foreign military sale to the kingdom of saudi arabia $39.00 small diameter bomb one munitions and related equipment for an estimated cost of $290000000.00. the trump administration approved that agreement with less than a month to go before the next president takes office and it follows billions of dollars worth of weapons exports from the u.s. to saudi arabia in recent years it's all comes despite repeated were warnings over the spiraling civilian deaths and the saudi bombing of yemen which has been going since march 25th team. the saudi led coalition and the hoof fighting since march 25th seen are responsible for laws of war violations in human rights abuses the conflict has killed and injured thousands of civilians. there are also several

other arab nations stealing last minute deals with the outgoing us administration quaid is about to buy attack helicopters worth $4000000000.00 and egypt will be getting missile defense defense systems along with precision targeting equipment for war planes those contracts with cairo come to around $170000000.00. we can now bring and live former pentagon analyst michael maloof now we're seeing a last minute flurry of arms deals between the trumpet ministration and mideast countries what he thinks behind this but now this is part of trump's effort to keep saudi arabia. well armed and to try and use its influence to offset iran on the other hand. the. united states in return gets billions of dollars still timidly from saudi arabia saudi arabia doesn't really know how to use all that equipment anyway but they have lots and lots of they have warehouses storage of most of these munitions and what have you that said.

the trumpet minute this is not going effort by the champ administration it's the biden administration may actually put the kibosh on it. biden himself as issues with saudi arabia and in addition the congress does as well and the congress has 30 days in which to disapprove and this is the period in which that would happen so and it would come and the 30 day period would be up during the new biden administration should he be sworn in and that will be and he could biden could put a hold on it at that point. was that over the past 4 years trump has fostered a close partnership with saudi arabia can you see this being rolled back completely by the biden administration. i don't think it will be complete because the united

states you know strategically saudi arabia is important but. historically biden and the obama admin administrations have had issues with saudi arabia there's in the congress certainly does as well that's not only in what has taken place in germany and prime but also the killing of the show so this the american journalist saudi saudi american journalist. in turkey a few years ago in the saudi consulate so i think that all of these things add up and there will be serious reevaluation of arms shipments in the future to saudi arabia just like i think this by an administration generally will be cutting back on the u.s. defense budget not just today there's been a wave of attacks and yemen as the new government was just flying and it's in a state of cut chaos that country after almost 60 years of war how much of

a role has the u.s. support and weaponry for the saudis played in this. well in terms of that attack it was intriguing because the end of the who thiis denied it and what you're talking about is a government that's ultimately situated in aden who these occupy sano which has been their capital in the past so the the country basically is divided into 3 parts . of the north. and the who are shia and the and the sunni in the south in which they've declared aden the be the temporary capital so i tend to think that there's a there's also a possibility even though the who through served in the it. people are pointing to even though people are pointing fingers there's a possibility that it was also. isis isis is growing back again in yemen after it was almost decimated a few years ago and their concentration seems now to be in the area and they would

love to create disruption and create power vacuums in those areas and. create the kind of turmoil that we continue to see in yemen. has claimed the u.s. needs to sell weapons to iran and check do you think that's worked do you go along with that line of reasoning no not at all the they don't they don't know how to use the equipment they don't know they don't have coordination and i don't think it's going to work. anything with former pentagon analyst michael miller thank you for your time and your comments. in argentina health care workers have received the 1st doses of russia sputnik as the country's mass vaccination campaign gets under way of all is russia and belarus and approving the shot argentina's president had dismissed fears of using russia's job warning it's fallen victim to it but politically driven international smear campaign yeah

that a trade wars have been unleashed against sputnik vive which is hampering distribution . from there is a very very she's dispute going on a very cruel dispute and a shameful one where by some discredit how this and i think the 1st thing to bear in mind is that a trade war has been unleashed also says the whole world is eager for the vaccine there's a geo political dispute who will be the one to distribute the vaccine our sister channel r.t. spanish brings us this report from outside a vaccination center and going to their. will be remembered in argentina as the start of the biggest vaccination ever carried out in the country has received 300000 doses of v. now the focus is on monitoring the vaccination of medical workers and hospital staff caring for people infected with coded 19 they were the 1st to receive the vaccine across medical centers they worked hard to tackle the virus but it's been

difficult not least because some of even seeing colleagues lose their lives the delivery of the vaccines cause for dismissal. this is a ray of hope for us it's like we've crossed the line of fire and are now moving forward against this damned virus we had a very difficult year there was a lot of fear this is a great hope for us and i'm eternally grateful on behalf of all of the nurses. i am satisfied i am very happy these are the emotions that come to my mind now i remember our colleagues who died because they worked in the health sector and happy because this should and. province more than 300000 people signed up for voluntary vaccination with the provincial governor who was the 1st to be vaccinated in the region detail the significance of this new step in the fight it gives the pandemic . it seems to me today is the beginning of a new stage for us largest vaccination campaign in the history of the province of

when a serious begin this morning and this is a vaccine that not only prevents disease. but also represents a real triumph as pollution in the fight against the virus campaign will involve around 7800 vaccinations and as a whole distributing doses brought from russia vaccinated will be supervised for possible side effects as well as to inform when a 2nd round of vaccines arrives more than 20000000 doses are expected to be delivered by february 11th major positive effect against the virus earlier we heard from latin america analyst francisco domingo's he thinks some countries are waging an information campaign against the russian vaccine. these are sort of. for to create a whole war fear deeply by the united states but also by some of the european car. russia and china but the reason needs that they have to come to the conclusion that

there is certain a massive i'm going to be fighting against that and then because these countries trying to russia and a few others actually have demonstrated that if you have a. if you call people before if you actually cared about the population rather than anything you know the results and you know demonstrably well if you were to compare the formants all european countries the united kingdom but also the united states where you have something close to a catastrophe then that's the reason why there is a huge comeback unfortunately. it was the media and the occasion right in all of the conservative forces around mockery and my prison created the must the question we're going to be the country control this year that we were the jobs. last night some world news in brief riot police have clashed with lebanese students at the top university protesters try to storm the main campus angry that despite

a coded economic crisis push and fees are being doubled. thank god. and tens of thousands of pro-choice activists are wrapped up in the cheers as argentina's senate voted to legalize abortion a deeply divisive issue and half like majority country people celebrated the decision by throwing green smoke bombs the color of the pro-choice movement becomes the 1st major latin american state to make a move. that's been your news breakdown for this hour and that's all for me as well today but we're not going in and we'll be taking over in about 30 minutes time expecting it every maybe.

join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest on the world of politics sport i'm sure i'll see you then. pain has changed american lives and pharmaceutical companies have a miraculous solution. based drugs to people who are chronic pain and believe that their opioid prescription is working for them on the remedy be said to. price that they pay closer dependency and addiction to opiates the long term use that really isn't scientifically justified and i'll study actually suggested that the long term effects might not just be absence of benefit but actually that they might be causing long term.

back geysers financial survival guide. housing bubble. oh you mean there's a downside to artificially low mortgage rates don't get carried away that's cause a report. this is tell me. is certainly. russian but tommy is a real friend who lives in finland. this ribera. his name is pete and didn't even own their oaths and. tonight told me he's heading for russia to take part in the european ice speedway championship. not many people know about this on the usual sports but motorcycle racing on ice is tommy's true passion.

officially the nordic countries are considered the birthplace of ice racing but it quickly caught on in. russia. is beautiful expensive very dangerous on top of that racist take place in extremely low temperatures which doesn't exactly help with promoting the school. ice races are often compared to that he ages and i often seem to be treading a fine line between life and death when they're on the racetrack. have. me. have a draw on.