in the headlines this hour the australian government's lamp's facebook for banning news posts in the country accusing the tech giant of the be using its power. spain is rocked by the unrest over the jailing of cattle in a wrapper public after he was handed a 9 month sentence for splendor in the crown and glorifying 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 so this is a. lady

. and under fire for concealing thousands of nursing home dads new york state assembly members push to strip governor andrew cuomo of a similar powers. a very warm welcome to the program from all of us here at r t h q in moscow and joining us this hour. the australian government has accused facebook of an abuse of power after the social media giant locked people and publishers in the country from sharing news posts for more on the story i spoke to r.t.s. osca taylor rough start to the day if you watch news junkie or a millennial and facebook is the open in the morning because on sunday a little astray a wake up to find that it's go to news pop form has pulled the plug on any and all local and into. national stories not obviously sparked shock but also outrage now

this is all because mogs bugs not a fan of proposed legislation in the country which would force attack and social media companies to pay news publishes to reposed that content facebook says this is on 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 but 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 parliament 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 media and it's blocked pages that really can and do affect people's lives so the bureau of meteorology blocked far and much and see services 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 its codes of 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 non 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. 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 well the astray and situation now shows that actually it is that easy whereas apparently removing the live stream of the

christ church 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 at 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 an 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 run it but what today's events do confirm for australians is the immense market power. 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 fool the facebook was too big to fail but looking at the and for the reactions it might well have triggered its own downfall a. large protests have broken out in spain over the jailing of cattle and a rapper a public a cell for slamming the crown and glorifying terrorism hundreds of celebrities have spoken out in support of the artist amnesty international described his arrest as an excessive restriction on his freedom of expression. thanks.

heavy clashes erupted in catalonia as his cell was arrested in his home town of on tuesday around 2000 people rallied in barcelona as well where they were met with a strong police presence and full of protesters set up barricades set trash cans on fire and threw projectiles at police regional officers said several people were arrested local journalist evelyn a question was at the scene. people are starting to like they already started yesterday going out on the streets of bar so long and 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 sneakiness in catalonia especially a lay down where. in the end we continue versity king 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 put it like the streets on fire and the plus a couple you know just the main square in there 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 the of course yesterday there was a woman who was injured she 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 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 this actually among a whole spain like you said the capital and others think other big and. because people are actually also tired of all the restrictions of so they are using you know different excuses such as the iris of law as basically also protest they want to you know have a normal life again well back to work. back in 28 in public a cell was convicted by a spanish court over tweets calling former king juan carlos the 1st mafia boss he also accused police of torturing and killing demonstrators and migrants fell foul of legislation covering spaniards rights to freedom of expression dubbed the gag law by critics the court ruled that spanish law prohibits such expressions of opinion. but a member of the catalan national assembly told us suppressing free speech is inexcusable. hispanic over many is. fundamental rights

are their right to free speech and create 3 creation croom government and is they call themselves the most progressive government in the history of the spain on so for them the case of capital 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 the independence not because we want to build a new a new contract with a more open and free loaders we want no more open system no system which. killed your creation like the one on the bestseller or others like. so of course we need this this change so we are fighting for this for

a more for you. 3. 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 this is led to rolling blackouts with many houses destroyed by the storms. this is this is it. is very this is floated. and like it is the other imbra oh it just gave you the total wreck of a pandemic right here for birds where you know all photos circulating online claim to show 2 a texas senator ted cruz flying to cam coon during the disaster cruise hasn't

commented on the pictures yet but they have caused a massive backlash on social media and he's not the only politician in 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 joining trying times like this sink or swim it's your choice the city and county along with power providers or any other service. thing it's pretty bad that you know us texans just came here for a whole other part of the country this would have been a huge issue any we've seen much for this action. so like she. told with all the water 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 bare we were. all forty's in texas struggled to

get power grids up and running some officials are blaming the afros in the wind turbines for the disaster and the locals harbor are placing the blame squarely on the local government's doorstep and 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 is energy last year have frozen to a standstill every source of power that 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 ecofriendly 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 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 caleb aren't seeing new york staying with us we turn to the protracted military presence on. capitol hill around 5000 national guard troops are expected to remain in washington d.c. and till the middle of next month a decision was reportedly made over lingering concerns of violence here's artes of her neck 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 that we have

almost like these little trailers that have been put up 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 right it's 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'd 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 tough it's going to cost american taxpayers $2650000.00 per day to have $5000.00 troops here. the 1st batch of russia spinning can be corona virus vaccine has arrived in gaza israel earlier blocks the shipment from getting to medical facilities but now about to been lifted the initial 2000 shots are intended for people in poor health and medical personnel working in intensive care units and the emergency services are most often reports. after coming under international criticism israel has allowed the shipment of the 1st batch of the russian vaccine sputnik v into the gaza strip through the qur'an border crossing it almost a. day but those badge of the russian vaccine has arrived it will be great help for all citizens certainly all of us will take the shot we hope other badges will

arrive in gaza as well otherwise the street will simply crack under the pressure of the condemned. according to the health ministry the 2000 doses which have been shipped are intended for individuals in poor health and medical personnel dealing with coronavirus infected patients in intensive care units and emergency services staff but we had a lot of extreme program will get underway on sunday morning into centers in order to cover all the provinces of gaza the vaccination campaign will go on until we run out of jobs the health ministry affirms that the russian vaccine is one of the best and most effective among international analogs the russian vaccine will help cope with the consequences of the pandemic affecting medical facilities due to a lack of capacity. to see further batches of the vaccine in the near future which will allow us to inoculate the whole population express our deepest gratitude to russia to its president count and people what they did for palestine. the shipment

comes after israel prohibited vaccine supplies to medical facilities in gaza the reversal of the ban opens up the prospect for future shipments of the facts into gaza yes the 4 more. people in gaza call israel's decision to hamper the delivery of sputnik vivax into gaza blackmail that's amid thousands of sick people including children who need to be vaccinated urgently. coronavirus pandemic has pushed evilly is north of all marble to the brink but many facing a daily dilemma of whether to for. feed themselves or take care of their medical needs in 2020 the number of people on the breadline in italy grew by 173000 on just under one 3rd of a tie ins 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 girl dog goes on there we are 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 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 eaten 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. with the i'm also finding it difficult to purchase drugs but always cost a lot i can't buy medicines the price of which is increasing more and more we're now talking about different coated 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 but leading health experts insisting that the current 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. but you weren't there was the normal but this year has definitely been a strange one the global pandemic has brought a number of sectors to the 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 of it all up and then. the pandemic has increased poverty and palermo is 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 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. line new york state assembly members are

pushing for governor andrew cuomo to be stripped of his emergency powers as a faces allegations that he broke the law by concealing covert deaths in nursing homes a scalar up to 2 weeks ago when the new york attorney general accused the cuomo administration of under-counting cover death in nursing homes by 50 percent a state health department then disclosed over 6000 previously unreported victims and spite widespread criticism cuomo has stopped short of an apology apologize look i've 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 scran of artist task force with a particular focus on his ministrations handling of nursing homes we spoke to vivian's a s who lost her mother to covet and 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 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. following the defeat of nazi germany in 1945 it was hoped that right wing extremism would be consigned to the pages of history but with a 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 there documentary on that premieres on you tube today and you can also watch it throughout the day here on r t international for now here's a quick preview. they're. also. going to intervene. in the fossil shorts is finished it can decide that. for the more.

than you. can see under for. the premier in the spring of. avoided trying to come about. we spoke to runner office chairman for alternative for germany in lindau 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 a.f.p. 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

it 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 at tackle the a.f.d. as a real opposition and opposition which is feared by everyone because of the other opposition parties of course see that the a.f.d. comes in with a totally new concept the democratic 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 that's going to wrap up of the day's top stories for this hour and that's all for me as well today or not you know neal will be here at the top the hour with your headline this. join me every thursday on the alec simon show and i'll be speaking to guest in 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 while you see in this these techniques is the state devising methods to end to essentially destroy the personality of an individual. by scientific. 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 courtroom the cia disseminated within the us intelligence community and worldwide among our allies for the next 30 years and how the victims say they still live with the consequences today. nations human beings to change nature so i think you know the music yes i think is what is lost there is that there is going to make people uneasy but really why should we be forced to buy time just because major sites in the. course of the new

break why don't we get jews that. they were good to true to my list also. i know deutsch. i'm going to read each answer but. that is from france and so it says finished it. at. the front the i will quote more of. this is. under for. the premier in the spring he met. our boys are trying to move the.

sure. that's why it's a top. down line of. all. she's. on the. known mention. the killing of 9 people and central germany was one of the worst far right attacks in recent years but it wasn't the only one senate talks have been attacked politicians assassinated and today their weekly press reports of new nazi cells and the police on military. and the government says extreme right terror is the number one threat to germany god isn't going to.