the. in the headlines this friday morning scott has accused brussels of politicizing the fight against the pandemic as the kremlin hits back at controversial comments from either chief live longer lying casting doubt over russia's code gets back to the. we discussed it is ongoing criticism of the russian vaccine with russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman. helping aggressive expects into the world not without hiding it making it too expensive for blackmailing with it. straight in government slams facebook for abusing its power after the social media giant blog to news feed in the country.

very well welcome you're watching r.t. international with me carrying on our top story this hour russia has accused brussels of politicizing the fight against the coronavirus pandemic as off the e.u. chief live longer lyon made controversial comments and when she questioned moscow's intentions to help the block with its slow vaccine rollout. we are perplexed to hear assessments by the head of the queue as it is either an effort to politicize the issue in an insubstantial dated and indeed deplorable way or indicates an inadequate level of awareness of the top level official. joining me now in studio with r.t. saskia taylor with the details thanks for coming in south and what can we make of these comments in light of russia's readiness to help with the slow vaccine rollout well it's pretty clear from the statement that russia is dismayed by the lack of to

proceed but also the life of humanity that the chief has recently shown again politics beats cooperation when it comes to the codes of 19 vaccine for the e.u. it really has been a struggle a struggle to get production off the ground a struggle to get jobs and arms a struggle with the u.k. of the who gets however many doses and the slowness in inoculating its 450000000 strong population has got people angry and frustrated this was in that view a political test russel's failed to the point that wonderland had to publicly apologize. this is. just not a fact is that today we're not where we want to be in convincing the virus we were late in granting authorization we were to also to mystic about mess production and maybe we also took for granted so the dose is old it would actually arrive on time we must ask ourselves why and what lessons we can to offer meant. to difference that one lesson that did come out was that the e's been so inefficient that

individual member states have been forced to go out on the road looking for alternatives and then looking at russia hungry for example has registered from margins you sputnik v. we also heard in the czech republic showing an appetite for the russian fraxinus so here we've got us into one delay and buried by criticism humiliated by having to say sorry feeling the pressure what better way to divert attention from all the problems in your backyard than by fighting accusations at another country in fact let's remind ourselves of exactly what it was that she said. overall as most say. we we still wonder why russia is offering theoretically millions and millions of doses while not sufficiently progress in vaccinating the own people this is also a question i think that should be answered but do longer lines concerns have any ground here i mean

a spoken exam has been registered in 29 countries but what's the situation right here within russia well let's be clear from the very get go as soon as russia became the 1st country globally to write that $1000.00 vaccine president putin came out and said russians come fast that is and always will be our priority and this was something that was reiterated by the representatives in brussels representatives of the russian authorities saying too for community and business entities have repeatedly publicly stressed that vaccination of its own citizens constitutes an absolute priority for russia in its fight against covert 19th and full compliance with the principles of democracy and human uteri and law inoculation and russia's voluntary and to date all interested citizens are provided with the vaccine without delay and free of charge without free accessibility is undeniably a scene success russia isn't top 3 if you're a pin a sense in terms of vaccinations at last count 2200000 including many of our

colleagues who described how smooth the process was you know they turned up they didn't have to book in advance they did their medical check they got faster than the 2nd dose then they went home and they were getting back to normal life at the same time we're seeing a very positive dynamic in terms of case numbers which are steadily declining day on day. as in every single country not everyone is racing to go and get that job at least not quite yet and this discrepancy between internal and external to mind is something that moscow raised recently. just we haven't had any reports about vaccine shortages anywhere domestic demand for this vaccine is still gathering momentum in moscow there's no deficits but we can see there's a huge demand for demand for the russian vaccine abroad it is indeed high it's so high that he suppresses our production capacity that's why we are actively working on quickly launching production of the vaccine in several foreign countries to

production in foreign countries will cover demand abroad while manufacturing inside the country will cover the domestic market. so clearly that's the logical response to vonta lens quite hostile comments but here clearly throwing up political punch was more important than logic perhaps not surprising we obviously know the e.u. russian relations are going through a slightly bumpy parks moscow says it's for straighted by brussels consistently interfering and it's in tun in the fries and it looks like here we might be seeing at the same story instead of trying to resolve its own issues the e.u. is trying to deflect attention and undermining a country who's trying to offer a helping hand. thank you for coming in with those details well this is just the latest in a long line of chris core marks coming from the european union over sputnik the us despite some countries in the blog voicing support for the job as the e.u. continues to face supply shortages artes and so on course discuss the issue with the spokeswoman for the russian foreign ministry. it's not that it's an experience

but our vaccine developments were denied by the west they said lots of different things that it does not exist it's bad and nobody should use it it was necessary to invent something very fast in order not to destroy the created myth that russia is an aggressor how can aggressors offer its facts into the world not without hiding it making it too expensive or blackmailing with it this is what they aggressively do instead we offered it as a tool as a method maybe not as a panacea but one of the means of overcoming the crisis in some ways it can be compared to space of course the scale is different but when you read the guardian went on his flight and when he returned what did the soviet union it announced that outer space is for peaceful exploration that what they used to saw proposed to the world city new trend in the direction the same with the vaccine we're open to corporations we're ready to join production we're ready to study and share our

experience some people from the west couldn't deal with it this is a blow and this is not envy this is a blow to the longstanding model of representing russia as an aggressor. but stepping out of it while it's countries in latin america continue to receive supplies of russians but maybe we are squire many western countries are selling games the vaccine more on that story later in the program. watch protests continue in spain over the arrest of councillor pablo hersel has been jailed for slandering the crown and glorifying terrorism. musician was arrested on tuesday at the university where he and his supporters had barricaded themselves inside hundreds of public figures or spoken out in support of the artist while honesty international described his attention as an excessive

restriction on taste freedom of expression protests in support of the 32 year old has been taking place across the country where silting in riots and clashes with police. back in 2018 pablo a cell was convicted by a spanish court have a tweet calling the former king a quote a mafia boss he also accused police of torturing and killing demonstrators and migrants herself elf out of legislation covering spaniards his right to freedom of expression dubs the gaggle all by critics a court ruled spanish law prohibited such expressions of opinion probably myself lawyer give says his view on the matter is that. in this country the term glorification of terrorism has been used very easily to persecute political dissidents it's one of the countries where many artists have been given prison terms and it's not nice and here we have other political and social problems i mean

the pandemic the economic recession is a very important matter as young people have no future the state is very powerful and there are many types of violence that it's using to protect itself this is systematic and daily violence against those who lost their homes who have no homes as they don't have an income people are unhappy with this violence. the australian government has accused facebook of abusing its power that's a lot of the social media giant blocked news posts in the country. we decide of course this is a strike you're going to business here you work according to our rules and that's a reasonable proposition we're happy to listen to them on on the technical issues of this just like we listen to a sensible arrangement but the idea of shutting down the sort of sorts i did yesterday as some sort of threat i was trying to react to that and i thought that was a. not a good move on their part and i should move quickly past that come back to the

title and we'll sort it out in addition to news posts facebook also blocked a number of key australian government pages including health departments emergency services and trade unions the company later commented on the issue saying these accounts had been inadvertently impacted and would be restored radio host kerry harrison professor of liberal studies michael rex involved and political commentator lauren sharon gave us their take on the story. although i don't like facebook by any means i also don't blame them for trying to put a stop to what i think is a very bad policy that in the end well only end up hurting smaller independent and perhaps even dissident sources in favor of a larger more establishment media sources these news organizations are disappearing that's really what's at stake and they really don't have any choice because they're not generating the kind of revenues necessary to run these news that 6 content of

which facebook reliance on we have seen a whole cloth disruption of paid you know professional journalists guys that spent 30 years cutting their teeth and there are a lot of jobs because who's going to pay him $80.00 grand plus benefits to write a story when you can get to me on his you know no unfair if i know real credentials in journalism typing out something and make more money on those clicks so the question is for democracy is what is the threshold where people deserve to have real information and should they have to pay for it should facebook profit on someone else's work without giving them some look you can understand facebook's desire not to give in and start paying for news stories like google did once the box opens there's $200.00 other countries surely saying we want some to facebook what you do to their shareholders right if we start saying all right facebook will have to pay to feature news articles and news links what's stopping other forms of

content from doing the same this whole social media i guess ecosystem has really spun out of control in terms of how it is monetize and actually a i think more equitable if i can use that word solution to this would be to start talking about ways to break up the monopoly that facebook does have on advertising and also on user data basically the biggest problem with facebook is that they're utterly controlling the narrative and they're completely shutting out news that doesn't obey the narrative miss and this goes for almost. every issue down the line that's of the importance today let's remember back in around 2007 i happen to be one of those lucky ones who interviewed this guy who started facebook he was a nobody was still on my space my space everywhere and he said that he wanted to create an eco system similar to a a well at the time if we all remembered dial up ale well it closed circuit environment where all your dating your shopping your opinions and basically people

who weren't able to have real friends in life could have thousands of friends make believe friends and call them their friends and you would never have to leave that world and it would do everything for you well that dream has come true and now all of us are sitting in the middle of it going well wait a minute it's either all capitalism where anything goes and we can all charge for everything or it's part capitalism or it's something but we're at that time of growth now where we actually have to make the grown up decisions. still to come millions in the southern states of america are left without warts that only make tricity and that a deadly winter storm victims receive little sympathy on social media but last story i'm small coming up after the play.

join me every thursday on the alec simon show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see you then.

welcome back my country as a latin america continues to receive supplies of russia's sputnik way with fenice wail of being the latest nations a low intense facts a nation program with the job his artie's might gather c.f. with his take on why there are such diverging jet political views on the russian faxing sputnik v. was born into disbelief ridicule and jokes how could russia have done what the richest and the most democratic nations of the world couldn't finally came acceptance. but acceptance. is the percent of.

it was always politics it was never really about the vaccine if scrutiny came from france for example could you even imagine it would have attracted this much ridicule and scorn of course it would fortunately science prevailed and sputnik is saving lives in latin america. we're happy with the signing of a very important contract for our country for our population for the believe in people because in this way to believe is among the countries among the many countries that today are making efforts to provide a way out and give the population certainty in the face of this pandemic lose interest in the you know money russia has extended to helping hand in solidarity to all of people country attacked by imperial powers implicated country

a criminal. the people who mock than the rodded sputnik be they haven't changed their minds and that isn't what they do they still hate it they hate a vaccine just because it's russian but since they can no longer smear the vaccine as unsafe now they're trying to syria into the collective consciousness that it is a weapon a russian weapon a vaccine cold war the joke is right jus political vaccine that's too good to be true and now you have to be a putin friend to place an order we will of course and the stat that it was and it is tabloid trash sell out pundits acting in special interests they're angry that the united states which has lorded it over the americas north and south assumed all that it isn't the us riding latin america's rescue with a vaccine clutched in it's had this is what we do and geopolitics you know the

americans have the assistance with food to africa and it has labels of us say things like that's what we do this all the time and the vaccine is going to be a new way of this geopolitics in terms of getting of a bigger influence in the sphere of what america it's a game of chess if someone is winning that means the other side is losing so they feel bad they meeting maybe the western european union or the americans you know united states is losing in. latin america because the russians are gaining latin america which journalists seem to imply when running off to russia actually didn't see contrary to what their padley teach in us journalism schools latin americans aren't idiots and that perfectly capable of weighing their options so his flaws are and his sputnik funds is twice as expensive roughly and very difficult to transport

into store requiring deep freeze which is again expensive or is sputnik which can be kept at your regular kitchen fridge temperatures when we looked at the contracts we evaluated the ones with fines it did not comply with the legal protocols we expected we reached out to the russians and president fernandez related directly with putin and this sped things up we've heard for months now promises and calls from western politicians and leaders to stop buying out and who are doing all the vaccines so far that is being merely wind coronations or to put their faith in cuckoo vacs they were told w h a mechanism to provide the developing world with enough jabs to inoculate 20 percent their population free of charge a levy in colombia even got on the shortlist and guess what or a single dose as yet been delivered but you don't see politico raising

a fuss about kovacs being too good to be true. a huge storm sweeping through the southern u.s. has killed at least 24 people and texas one of the hardest hit states and millions of people are still facing water and power shortages the texas governor has blamed the power grid operator for the massive outages saying it felt to prepare for the storm the operator has stated there is significant progress has been made in restoring power meanwhile people online took the opportunity to mock their political opponents caught up in the storm kind of more pain reports at a time like this you would think that texans would be receiving lots of love and sympathy from their fellow americans but not this time some just don't seem to be able to forget that texas is red they say this is god's punishment for election denial i feel for the people suffering through this weather but god doesn't seem to

like ted cruz who john cornyn these 2 also never recognize to do a war if this isn't payback i don't know what he is hey texas keep voting for officials who don't believe in climate change and supported privatization of the power grid maybe in 4 years you can vote for trump again he believes in the latter but not the former perfect. isn't it great how the red states are the 1st to denounce the federal government and also the 1st one to start whining and crying for help from the fat's when things go back to lead them freeze i say let them freeze with wanting to split away with us now they're begging for help their red states warm them up so here we have americans saying that americans deserve to freeze because they are trump's supporters and some find the whole thing up warry asli funny this is especially tough for texans because they're not equipped for

snow they don't have snow shovels out there the best bet is to grab the air 15 to shoot each snowflake before it lands while this seems to be a shocking revelation of american solidarity many texans don't seem too happy with ted cruz their senator who's enjoying his vacation in cancun and maybe they're also devastated to hear that they're on their own from their mayor 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 now that mayor has resigned that post has been deleted from social media but all of this has not made things easier for texans partisan mockery and mere celebration of the suffering of so many people in the lone star state seems to fly in the face of joe biden's claims that he's trying to reunify the country the nation is not divine to you go out there and take

a look and talk to people you have fringes on both ends but it's not nearly as divided as we make it out to be and we have to bring it together as americans don't seem horrified by what's happening in texas but rather see it as some kind of cathartic revenge for their political opponents it seems that biden's promise of reunifying the country is pretty far off caleb mop and artsy new york. on many are mourning the death on wednesday of 70 year old conservative shock jock rush limbaugh some left leaning celebrities on twitter users all celebrating insults have been trending on twitter never speak ill of the dead the poet tells us but the truth demands of recognition of some fux besides murdoch there's been no more destructive a practitioner of the big life for profit in us history cancer cancer r.i.p.

rush rottenberg terry i would like to extend my deepest sympathies to the poor devil who will no doubt have to spend the rest of eternity with rush limbaugh well meanwhile many conservative politicians and pundits have paid tribute to the broadcaster with many calling him a legend and hero rush limbaugh had a strong influence in republican political and media circles and was heavily criticized by liberals for his controversial views he was best known as the radio host of the rush limbaugh show and was awarded the medal of freedom by former president donald trump political analyst and radio host dave perkins believes speaking ill of the dead has much deeper roots than politics. he did not say things that were new to people he said things that people already believed and were kind of desperate for other people to say in public and in media so they could say yes yes that's me they flock to him because he said what they believe then has through

the idea of dancing on his grave and celebrating his death that to me is a side effect of this collectivism that when you want groups to prosper and when you care about groups and you're all of a groups you must necessarily divest yourself of concern for individuals because individuals standing out is always a problem to the collective and so what we have now is a country where people step up publicly say publicly right on social media things like he's getting the tour of hell as we speak not a minute too soon i'm going to get punished for this but my 1st thought was thank god rush limbaugh is dead it's awful and if you ask me it displays the destructive power of collectivism to a culture and we've gone so far down that road now so many people are so willing to abandon respect for the individual and speak ill of the dead as quickly and loudly as possible i'm a little concerned this culture has gone off a slope that we're not going to be able to come back from thanks for joining us

here on c.n.n. so this hour we're back in 30 minutes with the latest. the british and american governments have often been accused of destroying lives in their own interest or you see in this these techniques is the state devising methods to him 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 torture. disseminated within the u.s. intelligence community and worldwide among our allies for the next 30 years and how the victims say they still live with the consequences today.

of hers financial survival guide i don't buy a i because i'm a features. of the friday as of last night i buy it from the future tracker watch kaiser. we're more politicized than ever or more polarized than ever the 21st century when speed is measured in megabytes per 2nd. and of course he's in him at a tronic mail electronic money electronic media infinite possibilities for exchanging information. while freedom of speech and social media bends censorship and double standards who should judge what can be said online. the internet audience now totals almost 4500000000 almost all of them are active

social network users but one wrong move from their pages deleted. digital annihilation don't exist anymore both gone who runs the show on the web and how can anyone stand up to the tech giant sci fi from the heads of state face the threat of being bent is there any limits to hold on to virtual power. the postal before i go believing it will flying too close for me to this but i was reasonable way in. the post trauma era has begun or has it what role would the former president play within the republican party by all accounts trump intends to remain relevant if this is the case what is the future of the populist wing of the party and fourthly if indeed the g.o.p. is now the party of the working class well the party leadership in phrase is in direct.

sims 3 said intrusive going to search through the police. into the crease. door justice was me it would be in the. low. in the law to know the guy when you get home from. someone you know more than got a clue from arthur go away good night remember. this. one will be. smooth in the courtroom and. move signet our words. as we are.