in the headlines today on r.t. international spain is blank spy on the west over the jailing of cats a long rap a sell off he was handed a 9 month sentence for laundering the crown undergo a fine terrorism. and millions of texas residents are left without electricity and heat as well farty struggle to cope with the deadly winter storm sweeping the southern states of america. so this is.

also on food in medicine that's the choice facing many of its allee's most vulnerable as the pandemic takes its toll. a very warm welcome to you it's 10 am here in moscow and you're watching r.t. international with me here airing now our top story this hour large protests have broken out in spain over the jailing of counsel on pablo has cell force laundering the crown on the glorifying terrorism hundreds of celebrities have spoken out in support of the artist while honesty international described his arrest as an excessive force direction on his freedom of expression. it was i.

was. hurt. it's heavy clashes erupted in council lonia cell was arrested in his hometown of gaither on tuesday around 2000 people rallied in barcelona where they were met with a strong police presence a handful of protestors that's a barricade said bins on spy and 3 projectiles at officers regional law enforcement said several people were arrested the local journalist evilly neckerchiefs girl was at the scene. people are starting to like they already started to protest yesterday going out on the streets of barcelona they want public hustle to be released he basically was criticizing the spanish crowd and she's in his songs in his rap there are a lot of teenagers a protest think mostly young people and not just in barcelona but also in other

cities in catalonia especially a lay down where. in the end when he's in you versity you basically barricaded himself and now he says that she just wanted the truth to come out and he's very happy happy about it they just like the streets on fire and the plus a couple is the main square in there in barcelona and the police are getting quite angry because it's like the 1st process since many months in the barcelona because of it of course yesterday there was a woman who was injured who was there she's only 19 years old and she got basically like a bullet in hair in her face and now it seems like there are for the star even. bigger than yesterday and they might continue for the next couple they are famous for protesting and demand back. there in the iris of well

might have just been an excuse because it's been months since the cuts along where protesting this actually among a whole span like you said they have told and and others other big. banks because people are actually also tired of all the restrictions of coverage so they are using you know different excuses such as the iris of pablo basically also protesting that they want to you know have a normal life again well back to work. 32 year old hersel was taken to prison earlier this week after barricading himself and i catalan university with his supporters it comes in the wake of last weekend's his start showing of pro independence parties in local catalan elections back in 2018 public hersel was convicted by a spanish court of glorifying terrorism and insulting state institutions he fell

foul of legislation covering spaniard's his rights to freedom of expression dubs the gag law by critics talking about the ruling the supreme court said free speech has its limits and is subject to constitutional demands a member of the catalan national assembly told us suppressing free speech is inexcusable the spanish government has security from them in the right start is their right to free speech and free free creation through government and. they call themselves the most progressive government in the history of the spain on saw for them the case of. a big problem because it is a clear sign that this is not true or not this is one of the reasons why we want the independence not because we want to build a new a new contrary with

a more open and free laws we want to know more system no system which accept. the killed and the creation like the one on her cell or others like. so of course we need this this change so we are fighting for this for a more free. deadly winter storm sweeping across the southern united states has left millions of americans without power for days and texas their record winter freezes led to rolling blackouts with many houses destroyed during the storm so this is. the reasons for this oh ok.

thank you to feel and grow oh gee again used to total regular person being with here for the birds. and all the already struggle to keep power grids up and running some officials the placing the blame on the renewable energy sector for the disaster while locals criticize local authorities for the slow response. pretty bad the states just can't we're told every other part of the country this wouldn't but issue any we've seen mark for this action turn our souls nicely. to cold to the hole in the water you got on the blanket sound we try to all sleep together to keep us warm and then today when we got out there was no water we have no real update of when it's going to come on our phones barely were without electricity texas residents are resorting to some rather desperate measures in the hopes of staying warm they are firing up the grill and the generators and some of the even tried to

use their cars to heat their homes resulting in several deaths and over $300.00 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning people are dying from carbon monoxide poisoning we have had so many calls in so many incidents that we can't even track them all with think amid this kind of chaos that local officials would have your back all the way except instead we heard a local mayor who decided to give a lecture on personal responsibility and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps no one owes you will your family anything nor is it the local government's responsibility to support you trying times like this sink or swim it's your choice the city and county along with power provide any of the service nothing it wasn't exactly what people wanted to hear however with him gone colorado city and the rest of texas are still not doing very well electricity costs are up 10000 percent the major oil refineries of the state has shut down due to freezing weather that bright

new future of green energy isn't working out so well in the present the wind turbines that accounted for almost a quarter of texas' energy last year have frozen to a standstill alternative energy sources have been a key aspect of the democrats' push for eco friendly policies a key plank of our build back better recovery plan is building a modern. resilient climate infrastructure and clean energy future that will create millions of good pain union jobs critics are blaming joe biden and the democrats saying they pushed climate friendly policies a bit too hard and branding the outcome catastrophic licious how the green new deal would be a deadly deal for the united states of america if the last few days have proven anything it's that we need oil and gas relying solely on renewable energy would be catastrophic many of these sources have proven to be unreliable the united states may be a global superpower but at home it's

a lacking power quite literally all of this critics say are symptoms of america in decline. are seeing new york. the coronavirus pandemic has pushed easily as most vulnerable to the brink with many facing a daily decision of whether to feed themselves or take care of the medical needs and 2020 the number of people on the breadline in italy grew by 173000 and just under one 3rd of autonomy as are struggling to make ends meet as the country faces its worst economic crisis since the 2nd world war we heard how italians are coping with the pandemic. picture all the calls on the real my situation has worsened due to the pandemic i'm a small cross man who worked in fairs and since everything is now closed due to the curb it i don't know how to go on i have to pay for some medicines but without anyone's help i often can't afford them between eating in treating myself i choose

the former you don't know what you have to pay for 1st between pain the house bills and medicines you don't really know what to prioritize so i decide not to treat myself. i'm also finding it difficult to purchase drugs that always cost a lot i can't buy medicines the price of which is increasing more and more we're now talking about different covert variants they're saying there could be a new look down so we don't have a better future to look forward so there is no hope. the new italian government is facing growing calls to change its strategy for dealing with the pandemic with leading health experts insisting that the current tiered system of waging all restrictions is it effective the government scientific committee on monday its ministers to follow other european countries in implementing stricter measures we spoke to people in italy about the situation. that was about to go this year has definitely been a strange one the global pandemic has brought a number of sectors to their knees and among these is certainly the poorest people

who are having the greatest difficulties finding drugs and buying medicine many people can't even afford to buy drugs at a reduced price donating medicines brings a smile to the faces of people who can be treated the crisis is devastating and there are people who even have to make a choice between eating and treating themselves at all of. the pandemic has increased poverty and palermo it's quite high in the year before the pandemic were open 3 days a week but now due to comit we have to open 5 days a week people don't work and can't even pay for meds since we collect medicines and then we give them to people who can't afford them people can't pay for them so we do what we want we distribute food for children too we are missing many things and we are also struggling with this. when united states 9 new york state assembly members are pushing for governor andrew cuomo to be stripped of his emergency powers that says he faces allegations that he broke the law by concealing deaths in

nursing homes the scandal escalated 2 weeks ago when the new york attorney general accused the cuomo administration of undercounting the deaths in nursing homes by 50 percent the state health department then disclosed over 6000 previously reported victims despite wide criticism andrew cuomo has stopped short of an apology apologize. i have said repeatedly we made a mistake when we didn't provide information it will. press people cynics politicians to fill the void i just want to be sure people know these are the facts these are the facts. everything that could have been done was done is also being reported that the f.b.i. and federal prosecutors are investigating quote most coronavirus task force with

a particular focus on his administration's handling of nursing homes we spoke to vivian zionists who lost her mother to covert in new york in a new york care home and went on to set up the advocacy group which was the 1st to call for an investigation on the governor. every single time he has a press conference he always says it's conspiracy theory or he's blaming someone else but what he doesn't understand is that families are not just our broken we have questions and what he's given so far is insufficient my sister and i were the ones trying to find out really what was going on in my mother's facility we had no idea that this was a statewide nationwide issue so the steps we're taking right now is against the nursing home directly they were the ones in charge of my mom they were the ones who failed to treat her they're the ones who were not prepared for the pandemic they're the ones who had a duty to my mother and to the other now 69 residents to keep them safe so what

we're going to keep going is raising our voices and crying out for a statewide in the pending investigation and a federal investigation into cuomo and his and his administration's. going up after the break the italian service sector has been devastated by the pandemic forcing some business owners to open that doors in defiance of co-wrote the virus rules more on this story later in the program. banks guys are financial supply they say money to develop. large it is it this is a central bank support dyna filaments kind of call them right now it's a stop to that.

is you'll be via reflection of reality. in the world transformed. what will make you feel safe. isolation community. are you going the right way or are you being led. by. what is true what is faith. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the debt. or a made in the shallowness. welcome back following the defeat of nazi germany in 1945 you'd think that right wing

extremism would not be limited to the very fringes of society but as artie's redfish project discovered this may not be the case it's documentary premieres on you chip today and you can watch it throughout the day on aussie international as well but here's a quick taste. there were the true to my list of. i'm employed. devising some desired and some fossil choices and used it in the. for the good god or god so that the earth. could sit on the ball with. the beer in the bring your steven baba yaga awarded for you to grab on to me because.

we spoke to reign of arthur as chairman of alternative for germany and linda claims that the party has been demonized by political rivals and the media. it has become quite common to misuse the term of not citizen to fight against political enemies and it's not only the a.f.d. which has become the whip him of this we have a very long and complete list of all right extremist parties and also organizations n.g.o.s etc of which is you cannot come and enter the a.f.d. as a member as to now really concerted campaign of the political parties and the media is running to demonize the a.f.d. for things they are not really responsible for if you look at the programmatic.

aims of the party it is the conservative party which even has a strong elements of a left wing party it is quite obvious that the other parties attack the a.f.d. as a real opposition an opposition which is feared by everyone because also the other opposition parties of course see that the a.f.d. comes in with a totally new concept the democracy system it will only be complete if you allow also citizens to decide in. a referendum on basic issues concerning the government and the country and this was for many years the basic point in the program off the green party for example which is to consider to be

a left wing party. of $5000.00 national guard troops are expected to remain in washington d.c. until the middle of next month the decision was reportedly made over lingering concerns every islands has r.t. foreign from jack with more on that story. one of the places that i actually lived in was a news anchor was in all paso texas where you had fort bliss that is the 2nd largest army post in the country when we pulled up to the gates here this morning it looks like i was walking into fort bliss there is a there's a whole street that's blocked off here that goes right into a checkpoint you'll see that these cars they go in they get checked pointed by police by national guard and you see this is all happening literally just you know maybe 2 football fields away from our u.s. capitol you can also see to the left of the capitol here in our life that we have almost like these little trailers that have been put on we have a lot of these members where they're actually staying there was 26000 troops here

during the inauguration the numbers starting to go down but they want to have 5000 troops here scheduled again like you said till march 4th because you have a lot of cuban members talking underground and in sub reddit in you know you have a lot of these different you know social media other outlets and they're going to talking about possibly coming back again on march 4th believing that trump will be reinstated as the president again the fence looks like it goes down for miles now it goes all the way to the reflection pool in front of the capitol you know this is the people's house kids come here on their snow days to slide down the hill and now it's completely occupied by the national guard here i want you to look at the fencing right now normally you have barbed wire fencing you have barbed wire fencing outside of federal prisons this is razor wire this will kill you if you try to breach this fence here ok that fence that goes all the way around the perimeter of the capital $50000000.00 now again there's talks of having the national guard stay here until the early fall it's it's going to cost american taxpayers $2650000.00 per day to have $5000.00 troops here. and

a push to boost limited vaccine supplies and get its faltering vaccine program off the ground the european union has signed contracts with madonna. and attempts to diversify its vaccine portfolio has lost his piece on the phone with the details. here in germany the authorities are worried about the spread of the so-called group a variant of coded 19 it already accounts for 22 percent of cases that have been reported and the fear is that this much more content ages version of the virus could become the dominant strain from march the 1st all citizens should be able to be tested free of charge by train staff with rapid and tests even self tests should be accessible to everyone once approved these test options can contribute to a safe everyday life especially in schools and daycares and the health minister also wants to see more comptrollers on those coming into germany from high risk

areas that's a nation has being slow across the e.u. in germany just under 4 percent of the population of had at least one cova job more doses over the vaccine are on order and are expected to arrive soon but there is frustration with the sluggish rollout among the population is and realistic because people still aren't taken khurana seriously enough not to have only decipher the neck of. the nation but. it's not as good as the other ones i guess now they want to use death but if people are very skeptical about the death of the mecca of vaccinations always get it got to leave it complicated enough the a use one for all and all for one vaccine procurement has come in for quite a lot of criticism for being slow to get into gear with senior any piece not pulling any punches in slamming the process

a fiasco i call it and fiasco it is let's look to to the fact. well after nearly 2 months the roll out of excise in dramatically low when you are the majority of the nearly $200000000.00 covered dark signs that have already been produced are coming from european factories nevertheless there is a crucial lack of supply in every european member state france is giving out a job to around 4 percent of its population present girl and sets out this summer as a deadline for vaccinating everyone who wanted a shot months looking very ambitious right now. and i think that in france we did not take the problem seriously enough at the start we just thought of it as a little flu that had come from another country. well i think because they're always late or a question of money i don't know i don't know i don't know what to tell you about

it well it looks like it started badly. in spain there currently are just under 6 percent of the population with not much confidence in hitting the goal set to vaccinate 70 percent of citizens so impossible as it goes into they are going to be made it would take more than 2 years to vex need 70 percent 70 it's mismanagement we should change the way of managing vaccination be able to get country where it should be i see the very slow for some reason because there is bad management and they sell them to the highest bidder they do not fulfill the contracts i think not here in spain it is where week. for the most part the slow rollout in europe has been down to not having enough vaccines to give while infrastructure has been in place to give the injections some countries have had to suspend their inoculation programs because they don't have the required doses all the while the russian

sputnik of the vaccine which received blistering reviews and medical journals is still awaiting e.u. approval for use in the block peter all over r.t. berlin a restaurant in milan has set up a rapid covert testing booth and opened its doors to the public in defiance of covert curbs despite being fined the owner and 5th says the idea could help the hospitality industry stay afloat. we've already opened one week and we were always full of people want to go out and live.

to put it on you have to book in advance then you come here give your name and the docs assign the paper once the test is positive or negative. thanks for joining us arundhati international we have having a great start to your day we're back at the top of the hour with the latest.

welcome to the alex salmond show from scotland where today we look at the long term

health impact of the pandemic the impact on individual patients and the health impact on society as a whole i guess today professor humans got money and they did need position to judge of sas out of intensive care at university college london and also practice as a consultant in the whittington hospital today he has some haas wups for the u.k. failure and public health even with the national health service the following example a fashion over the cute i do a recent success of the vaccination program the scent of you coming up soon but 1st that just me and i with your tweet should emails and your messages. thank you alex and another tremendous response treasurer last week on the storming of the capital in the us we of course featured professor with davis is a world renowned anthropologist to give us a fuse on the future of america because it was says really enjoy that i love the u.s. and americans but their politicians are very scary all empires eventually crumble

but never should if the us influence in the world is good or bad create sure as far claudette says seriously can biden arrive in self never mind america potencies mr we did as you this eloquent language but that doesn't make it true he goes on to say i've watched many biden interviews where he contradicts his own words christopher morris says contradicting views that you previously held is called changing your mind not lying gordon mckenzie says professor wade davis is a fantastic guest i've seen 1st hand the divisions of recent still exist in the southern states maybe just maybe biden can help cement a more tolerant society finally got a lovely message from vancouver and he will in fact how alex is in mcclellan i want to show an r.t. in vancouver every week it's affection towards someone who knows how to interview his guests well done as part of the scottish diaspora.