in the day's headlines the australian government slams facebook for banning news posts in the country accusing the tech giant of abusing its power. play. spain is wrong spying on rest over the jailing of cattle and rapper public after he was handed a 9 month sentence for slumbering the crown and war fighting terrorism. also this hour millions of texans are left without electricity and heat as authorities struggle to cope with the deadly winter storm sweeping the southern states of america. this is this is.

these ladies. and under fire for concealing thousands of their homes that's new york state assembly members push to strip governor andrew cuomo of this emergency powers. you're watching are to international bring you your live news update from our studio here in moscow welcome to the program the australian government has accused facebook of an abuse of power after the social media giant blocked people and publishers of the country from sharing news posts for more on the story i spoke to are to use ask you taylor. rough start to the day if you are a news junkie or a millennial and facebook is the open in the morning because on thursday all of

a stray a wake up to find that it's go to news platform how to pull the plug on any and all roekel and international stories not obviously sparked shock but also outrage now this is all because mogs are not a fan of proposed legislation in the country which would force attack and social media companies to pay news publishers to repose that content facebook says this is on fat i'm not willing to negotiate and so on this really bold blanket ban a move which has infuriated the australian government for its book. sections were unnecessary they're way heavy handed and they will damage it's reputation here in australia their decision to block the strains access to government sites were completely unrelated to the media code which is yet to pass through the senate facebook's actions to unfriend australia today cutting off essential information

services on health and emergency services were as they were disappointing i am in regular contact with the leaders of other nations on these issues we will not be intimidated by big seeking to pressure our parliaments as he votes on our important news media bargaining code so what we just heard that and this is what's really got people tugging on facebook now the proposed legislation is about news but facebook has gone beyond the need to say and it's blocked pages that really can and do affect people's lives so the bureau of meteorology blocked far and a much and see saw that says which post updates about deadly bushfires they've been taken down to charities including women's shelters or legal services for aboriginal people as well as very crucially state health departments which pay a really big role of course in the ongoing pandemic now some of those pages have been restored but it's too little too late straight out like all this is preparing

it's code that 19 facts in roll out and now hospitals are worried that they will not be able to get out information to the people extremely concerning to find this morning that since vincent's melbourne's facebook page has been blocked these during the pandemic and on the eve of crucial covert vaccine distribution we hope this situation can be rectified very shortly now a facebook spokesperson said that the banning of no news organizations was a mistake but some would argue that the reputational damage has been done already this is just one example we've seen recently over the past few months governments and big tech facing off again and again but is this just. but of adding fuel to the fire well absolutely particularly stateside how many times have we seen mark zuckerberg being pulled into those endless hearings and facing accusations that his platform doesn't tackle harmful content enough that it's engaged in censorship that it doesn't react quickly to allegations of abuse facebook in these circumstances

often raises its hands and says you know what it's easier said than done it's a very difficult almost impossible task while the astray and situation now shows that actually it is that easy whereas apparently removing the live stream of the christchurch massacre in new zealand wasn't for many this wasn't the icing on top of the cake for a long time big tech face says allegations that it wields too much power the banning of course of the democratically elected president of the united states donald trump being the latest case in point so this latest situation just another example of silicon valley overreach and these actions will only confirm the concerns that increasing number of countries are expressing about the behavior of big tech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them they may be changing the world but that doesn't mean they ruin it for what today's events do confirm for australians is the immense market. of these media digital giants

these digital giants loom very very large. in our economy. and on the digital landscape the hash tag delete facebook trending people also isn't compatible with democracy some thought that facebook was too big to fail but looking at the and for reactions it might well have triggered its own downfall. large protests have broken out in spain over the jailing of catalan rapper public sell for slander the crown and glorifying terrorism hundreds of celebrities have spoken out in support of the artist as the international described his arrest as an excessive restriction of his freedom of expression. thank. you

thanks. heavy clashes erupted and how lonely as hassan was arrested at his home town of ada on tuesday around 2000 people rallied and barcelona where they were met with a strong police presence i am full of protesters set up barricades and set trash cans on fire and there projectiles at officers and regional police and several people were arrested well call journalist evelyn a question ska was at the scene. people are searching like they already started yesterday going out in the streets of mar so long and they want. to be released he basically was criticizing the spanish crowd and she's in his songs in his rap there are lots of teenagers a protest think and mostly young people and not just in barcelona but also in

others in catalonia especially a lay down where. in the end we continue versity he basically barricaded himself and now he said that she just wanted the truth to come out and he's very happy happy about it they just looked like the streets on fire and the plus a couple is the main square in the in barcelona and so the police are getting quite angry because it's like the 1st process since many months in the barcelona because of. course yesterday there was a woman who was injured there only 1000 years old and she got basically like a bullet spawn in hair in her face. and now it seems like there are those are even . bigger than yesterday and they might continue for the next couple of things

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 were protesting actually among whole spain like you said. and others other big. banks. also tired of all the restrictions. so they are using you know different excuses such as the iris of pablo basically also they want to you know have a normal life again and go back to work back in 28 was convicted by a spanish court over tweets calling former king juan carlos the 1st a mafia boss he also accused police of torturing and killing demonstrators and migrants myself fall foul of legislation covering spaniards right to freedom of expression dubbed the gag long by critics the court ruled that spanish law

prohibits such expressions of opinion but a member of the catalan national assembly told us suppressing a free speech is inexcusable. spanish governmentally is. fundamental rights activists have their right to free speech and create 3 creation. is they called themselves the most progressive government in the history of for spain and saw for them their case of problem has been brought to them because it is a clear sign that this is not true or not this is one of the reasons why we want independence not because we want to build a new a new contract with a more open and free laws we want to know more system the system which actually have. killed your creation

like the one i sell or others like. so of course we need this this change so we are fighting for this for a more free. 3. a deadly winter storm sweeping across the south of the united states has left millions of americans without power for days now texas has seen a record winter freeze with temperatures dropping as low as minus 18 degrees celsius for the 1st time in over 30 years and has lied to rolling blackouts with many houses destroyed during the storms so this is a very harrowing. days for it is. like it is. oh it gave you the total regular person being here for the birth of.

meanwhile photos circulating online claim to show texas senator ted cruz flying to cam kuhn during the disaster cruise hasn't commented on the pictures yet but they've caused a massive backlash on social media and he's not the only politician and hot water after a local mayor was forced to step down after his response to residents pleas for help 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 his or any other service owes you nothing it's pretty bad that you know it's texans you just came here to are told every other part of the country this would have been a huge issue in the late week too much for this action. so i speak. too cold to go over you got all the blankets out we try to all sleep together to keep us warm

and then today when we got up there was no water we have no real update of when it's going to come on our phones bear we were. all forty's in texas struggle to keep power grids up and running the some officials are blaming frozen wind turbines for the disaster many locals however are placing the blame squarely on the local government's doorstep often has the details. 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 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 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 every source of power the state of texas has has been compromised whether it be renewable power such as wind or solar but also as i mentioned today. access to coal generated power access to gas generator power also have been compromised 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 paid union jobs critics are blaming joe biden and the democrats saying that they pushed climate friendly policies a bit too hard and branding the outcome catastrophic shows 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. r.t. new york. staying with the us we turn to the. protracted military presence on capitol hill around $5000.00 national guard troops are expected to remain remain in washington d.c. and till the middle of next month a decision was reportedly made over lingering concerns of unrest here's our from frost nick with more on that story. one of the places that i actually lived in was a news anchor was an el 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 we have almost like these little trailers that have been put out 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 q. and a on members talking underground and 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. still have the pandemic makes matters worse for at least porous else on their face the police choice to eat or to treat more on that after this break. anyone else chose seemed wrong. when old rules just don't hold. any.

get to shape out these days become active. and engaged with equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. we are now at a point where we cannot manufacture the basic foundational components of the 21st century economy we are literally taking ourselves out of the game by throwing the keys to the economy to private equity groups wall street hedge funds financier's and money pressures and now it's too late.

welcome back to the program the coronavirus pandemic has pushed italy's most vulnerable to the brink with many facing a daily dilemma of whether to feed themselves or take care of their medical needs and 2020 the number of people on the breadline and only grew by 173000 all just under one 3rd of italians are now at risk of poverty that's according to the organization for economic cooperation and development we heard how italians are coping. on several troll boy or girl articles that are on there we are my situation has worsened due to the pandemic i'm a small grass man who worked in fairs and since everything is now closed due to the curve 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 there saying that could be a new look down so we don't have a better future to look forward so there is no hope. and they were telling government is facing growing calls to change its strategy for dealing with the pandemic but leading health experts insisting that the current tiered system of regional restrictions is ineffective the government scientific committee on monday urged ministers to follow other european countries in implementing stricter measures here's what local pharmacist told us about the situation. if you weren't there was the normal but if you 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 it's 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 of it all up and they get over 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 covet we have to open 5 days a week people don't work and can't even pay for matt since we collect meds since 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're also struggling with this. in the united states 9 new york state assembly members are pushing for governor andrew cuomo to be stripped of his emergency powers that's as he faces allegations that he broke the law by concealing covert deaths in nursing homes a scandal erupted 2 weeks ago when the new york attorney general accused the cuomo

administration of under-counting coa dust in nursing homes by 50 percent the state health department then disclosed over 6000 previously unreported victims despite widespread criticism though cuomo has stopped short of an apology apologized look i have said repeatedly we made a mistake when we didn't provide information. it allowed 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. it's also been reported that the f.b.i. and federal prosecutors are investigating cuomo scrum arced task force with a particular focus on his administration's handling of nursing homes we spoke to be in serious who lost her mother to cope it in a new york care home and went on to set up the voices for seniors advocacy group.

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 how heartbroken 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 an 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 independent investigation and a federal investigation into cuomo and his and his administration's.

following the defeat of nazi germany in 1945 it was hoped that right wing extremism would be consigned to the fringes of history but with the movement gaining ground and virtually every european country in recent years there are fears its back with a vengeance artie's redfish project focuses on its rise in germany and their documentary on the subject premiers on you tube today and you can watch it throughout the day here on our to international as well for now here's a quick taster. they were the right in the state also. boettcher. who knew that each interval taking. prozac was for france and sure to say i wish to act like that. was a fraud the other called more. than your. this is inconceivable and therefore this is. the korea. from

a aka avoided talking to could have gotten this nimble that. we spoke with rayner office the chairman of alternative for germany and len now it 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 f.t. which has become the whip him of this we have a very long and complete list of all the right extremist parties and also organizations n.g.o.s etc of which it you cannot come and turn 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 of the green party for example which is to

consider to be a left wing party. that's been our breakdown of the day's top headlines for this hour but if you're looking for more you can always had to our website r t o. l look forward to talking to you all that technology should work for people. i robot must obey the orders given by human beings except where such orders that conflict with the 1st law show your identification for should be very careful about artificial intelligence and the point is to trace trusts every one of them if you're. going to take on theories chozen with artificial intelligence we're going to be in.

a robot must protect its own existence as. if. we're more politicized than ever or more polarized than ever the 21st century when speed is measured in megabytes per 2nd. just on the record. of course he'd see him electronic mail electronic money electronic media infinite possibilities for exchanging information i mean me and misquoting ish my misery nationwide freedom of speech and social media bent censorship of double standards who should judge what can be said on the line of something i already got what i want to. the internet audience no totals almost 4500000000 for most all of them are effective social network users but one wrong move from the pages deleted digital annihilation

don't exist anymore little guy who runs the show on the web. how can anyone stand up to the tech giants if he from the heads of state face the threat of being banned is there any limits to hold onto. the books. those kind of movies when i was reading will way. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to us of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. the british and american governments have often been accused of destroying lives in their own interests or you see in this these techniques is the state devising methods to him to essentially destroy the personality of an individual. by

scientific means this is how one doctor's theories were allegedly used in psychological warfare against prisoners deemed a danger to the state that was the foundation for the method of psychological interrogation psychological court for the cia disseminated from within the us intelligence community and worldwide among our allies for the next 30 years meant other victims say they still live with the consequences today. no wonder the show you can't afford it i'm french born washington here's what we have coming up to pick point unprecedented full run rages on but just how long.