in the stories that shape the week moscow warns that brussels is politicizing the fight against the pandemic of the kremlin gets back controversial comments from the head of the european union casting doubt over russia's vaccine. also this hour australians launched a campaign to boycott facebook after it bans news posts in the country that are giants made the move over the post long to make social networks pay freeze on times but the issue up for debate. facebook profit on someone else's work without giving them some look good was a problem with facebook groups but they're utterly controlling the narrative i think this whole social media i guess ecosystem is really spun out of control in terms of how it is monetize. dozens are dead and millions are left without power

and water as authority struggled to cope with crippling winter storms in the south of the us. and to black lives matter activists have reportedly been arrested for attacking a conservative journalist who was covering their rally. i feel that being conservative media is is because now very physically threatening to journalists america is descending into something that you know i would never have imagined truly experiencing in my lifetime. welcome to the weekly here on our 2 international where we bring you our roundup of the top stories from the week just gone. russia accuse brussels of politicizing the battle against coronavirus that's after falling a line the controversial comments questioning moscow's motives and offering to help the block with its vaccine roll out. we are perplexed to hear assessments by the

head of the you exactly as it is either in 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 we still wonder why russia is offering theoretically millions and millions of doses while not sufficiently progress in vaccinating the own people thrushes dismayed by the lack of diplomacy but also the lack of humanity that the chief has recently shown again politics beats cooperation when it comes to the covert 1000 francs seen 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 and don't know the senate this fact is that today we're not where we want to be in combating the virus we were late in granting authorization we were too old to mystic about mass production and maybe we also took for granted that the doses would actually arrive on time we must ask ourselves why and what lessons we can draw from it while one lesson that did come out was that the ease 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 rights to from urgency you sputnik see we also heard last year in the czech republic showing up a tight for the russian fraxinus as soon as russia became the 1st country globally to write that 1000 francs in 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 community. business entities have repeatedly publicly stressed that vaccination of

its own citizens constitutes an absolute priority for russia in its fight against kovi 19th in full compliance with the principles of democracy and human tarion 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 rushes in top 3 if you're a pen nations in terms of vaccinations at last count 2200000 including many of our colleagues who described how smooth the process was and this discrepancy between internal and external demand is something that moscow raised recently to 2 minutes you just we haven't had any reports about vaccine shortages and us domestic demand for this vaccine is still gathering momentum us for demand for the russian vaccine of it is indeed high it's so high that he suppresses our production capacity and that's why we are actively working on quickly launching production of the vaccine in several foreign countries production in foreign countries will kill the demand

of brought while manufacturing inside the country will cover the domestic market so clearly that's the logical response to vonda lens quite hostile comments but hit pretty throwing up political punch was more important than logic perhaps not surprising we obviously know that you russian relations are going through a slightly bumpy potch moscow says it's the straighted by brussels consistently interfering and it's an ton and it looks like hey 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. this marks just the latest and i long line of critical remarks from brussels over sputnik disappoint some states and the bloc voicing support for the shot as the news on an occupation program hits problems some of the european union's neighbors including montenegro and serbia have already started rolling out sputnik 3 parties and discuss the issue with the russian foreign ministry spokesman

that this is not that it's an experience 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 the aggressor 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 do it denounced it out of spaces for peaceful exploration that what they used to saw proposed to the world sit in the new trend in the direction the same with the vaccine we're open to corporations we're ready to join production we have raided 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 yet i seek a good. campaign to boycott facebook was launched in australia this week that's after the tech giant blocked news posts in the country over a proposed law to make social networks pay publishers for news content something that canberra called an abuse of power are to simon right gives us his take. australia's government is fully coming to terms of the founder of facebook has told it where to go and there's nothing you can do about it might use what happened social media giant facebook has followed through on a script restricting people in australia from viewing news content to or desire streaming you know it's better someone with an australian out in explains it so this morning if you visit a news site and astronomy aside by the social media platform you'll find there are no posts you can view washington news articles. we know it is australia could just

be there wasn't any news that day so the australian government wants facebook to pay for content which is shared on its platform but made by other media organizations those media organizations make the point and it's a good one that they pay to produce this stuff but big tech like facebook benefits for free facebook gave the completely b.s. response that making it pay for that stuff would be penalizing him for taking content that it didn't take or ask for which is a bit like finding a bag of cash on the floor and then saying well officer i didn't ask for it or take it from the bank so i thought i'd keep it finished in a carry on yeah so about that carry on on the other media companies do start their own pages and upload their own content of their own accord and as mark zuckerberg says every time his company is accused of ruining life on this planet it's a private company so that's what i believe but the future is private.

this whole news blackout thing i'm absolutely i mean who cares almost leave you've got a computer just go on through twitter or google instead. or anti doggone. news australia ministers are angry because they say facebook is among other things restricting access to health information during a pandemic. to which i say don't get your health information from facebook what's wrong with you it's an advertiser not dr quinn. medicine woman. australia's prime minister seems so close to grasping the reality of what's happened here scott morrison said that facebook. thinks they're bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them i promise that they don't think they're big or they know it governments have little to no power over these companies anymore australia's treasury. today's events do confirm for all the strains is the immense market power. of the

media digital giants these digital giants loom very very large. in our economy. and on the digital landscape let's not get carried away here i mean it's only facebook and the only people that use facebook now is your mom and her friends but the bigger issue is what happens when big tech decides to get together and define governments i mean even the protest about this to meet facebook is on another social media platform. or murdoch just can't deal with google that will see his media outlets get paid for their content that's one australian he's really cool and the market brainwashing going you know what there is always. bigger and 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 those

accounts had been inadvertently impacted and see international weighed in saying facebook's willingness to control information that people rely on is extremely concerning the group at the move start in stark contrast to what it called the tech giant's poor track record and handling hateful content and dison from asia. canada's back to australia in the spats the country is considering similar legislation to make facebook page news publishers and says it will not be intimidated my colleague in an o'neill got the thoughts of our guests 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 this content of

which facebook reliance on and we have seen a whole clause 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 of 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 . 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 and this and this goes for almost every issue down the line that 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 ecosystem 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 but 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. deadly winter storm sweeping across the southern united states has taken the lives of 58 people and left millions of americans without electricity heat and clean water for a day is one of the worst hit states texas has seen a record seasonal freeze with temperatures dropping as low as minus 18 degrees celsius for the 1st time in over 30 years that's led to rolling blackouts and extensive damage to homes this is this is it.

is so very these flaky. and that is the other imbra. again due to the 2 to wriggle the pandemic right here for birds right. meanwhile texas senator ted cruz has come under fire after he flew to the mexican resort city of can coon during the disaster he described the decision as a mistake when he returned the next day but that didn't avert the twitter storm that followed and he's not the only official in hot water a local mayor was forced to step down after his harsh response to pleas for help from residents know when i was you or 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 provide his or any other service nothing it's pretty bad that you know it's texans you just can't hear

or hold every other part of the country this would have been a huge issue in the late weeks in march for this action. so it's actually. too cold to go over you've 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 barely work. all 30 is in texas struggle to get power grids up and running some are blaming frozen wind turbines for the disaster others who offer are lang the blame squarely on the local government's doorstep and picks up the story without electricity texas residents are resorting to some rather desperate measures in the hopes of staying warm they're firing up the grill on 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

and 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 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 eco friendly policies a key plank of our bill 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 in the last few days if proven and the thing 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. still had 2 black lives matter activists have been arrested after reportedly attacking a conservative journalist at a demonstration we'll give you the victim's reaction after the short break.

the world is driven by a dream shaped by phone person of those. who dares thinks. we dare to ask. this is really the beginning of the changing of the guard you know we're now handing the baton off to china is the number one economy in the 21st century the numbers are there the statistics are there the relationships in your here you are there the relationship with russia and iran is there you know there are and there is a ship all over africa is also there. welcome

back to the weekly to black lives matter activists have reportedly been charged with harassment and attempted assault but it appears to show them attacking a conservative journalist who was covering the rally. i think that well there was something going on that these people who are eager to get right with her progress are who are these reports this is a pleasurable you're very truly she's a pushover you regarding the truth of her that's right critical because that is as you can see with what had happened to me it is very trying times initially when i saw they were harassing other journalists there and videographers and i went to

stand with them as well and they they wanted everybody to be turning off their cameras with our 1st amendment rights which is freedom to the press and also being a public space i kept my camera on and i said now this is public space and i'm reporting the news so my camera will stay on and that's when they started attacking initially or being media and then the 2nd time they came around to attack me when they identified which media i was i feel that being conservative media is is just because now very physically threatening to journalists. as she mentioned terror and was covering the rally when demonstrators identified her as a conservative reporter a journalist also claims nearby police ignored her calls for help so at one point a protester even appears to rob a used diaper in her face now in order for true peace to occur you need to have people to have that civil discourse it's not it's not true peace when the other side is boyce's are shut off and so is it may give up a start of unity or peace but it's act the detriment of you know $75.00

plus 1000000 americans who had voted and do support donald trump at the expense of basically shutting their voices out so that is not true unity when you're taking out your opponent it's not a fair fight america is descending into something that you know i would never have imagined 3 experiencing in my lifetime i don't condone the violence that happened at the capitol i condemn them along with other republican conservatives because because terrorism and and and destruction and what is going on that has no place in america and i do feel that we are seeing more attacks and by out of actually occurring from the left onto the right we see censorship that's going on and it's not even really being. occurring. demonstrations have swept through spain for a 5th consecutive day with thousands taking to the streets across the country to protest the jailing of a cattle and the rapper for accused of slandering the crown and glorifying

terrorism. going out to the streets of our so long. they want. to be released are lots of teenagers of drug testing and mostly young people and not just in barcelona but also in others in catalonia especially a lay down where. in the end he's university he basically barricaded himself they just look like the streets on fire and the police are getting quite angry because it's like the 1st protestant many months in the barcelona because of. course

back in 2800 pablo hazel was convicted by a spanish court over tweets calling the former king a mafia boss and also accuse police of torturing and killing demonstrators and migrants a cell phone foul of legislation covering spaniards right to freedom of expression of the gag law by critics the court ruled that spanish law prohibited such expressions of opinion but a member of the catalan national assembly told us suppressing free speech is inexcusable. the spanish government me is their secret being the fundamental rights artists have their right to free speech and free free creation croom government is they call themselves the most progressive government in the history of for spain on so for them the case of capital has been wrong 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 to know more system not a system which accept. the killed your creation like the one on a cell or others like. so of course we need this this change so we are fighting for this for a more free. 3. in the u.k. new cornton measures introduced this week might make travelers think twice before heading there one now requires people from 33 read a list of countries to fork out 1750 pounds 20 $400.00 to quarantine for 10 days and specially designated hotels are tough penalties for anyone who flouts the rules fines of up to $10000.00 pounds for those failing to quarantine and

a maximum prison sentence of 10 years for people who lie about where they've come from are to shadi i would sashay reports from outside one of those hotels. foreign travelers and brits returning home from $33.00 reckless countries are now forced to isolate and government mandated hotels in the u.k. for 10 days it's all part of measures to curb the spread of the new coronavirus variants but not only are rivals like elaine involved confined to the 4 walls of a small hotel room they've also got a thought they have to build themselves because. they want to know what we've got a big 2000 on it are our but i don't know i don't know yet but this couple what alone many flights being canceled and departure dates change due to complications of the cave at 19 pandemic and it's not just the financial burden that's weighing heavily other arrivals tell me the party policy is no safer than isolating at home .

i mean i like. being in this. one. currently the government has almost 5000 rooms available across 16 airport hotels with another 58000 on standby but as has been throughout the entire pandemic scotland has gone one step further by enforcing hotel currently measures on any international arrivals regardless of which country they arrive from even in exceptional circumstances we were do. we know all this in so it's when scotland. managed all. 'd automatically once the 16th and that's. what you would be

if. you can already have. if you were going to england or if you were willing to get. in. it's just if you will be penalized. you know you know we owe it all feeling like captives thousands of arrivals have to wait before getting home to their families adding ever more anxiety it's already testing times that you had stashed in arctic a land. that's a recap of just some of the stories that helped shape the world these last 7 days as always thanks for tuning in.

is your media a reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe. isolation community. are you going the right way or are you being led. away. what is true what is.

in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. aura made in the shallow. it's been decades since the fall of spain's fascist regime but old wounds still haven't healed. me from an old. me coffee to market economy suppose. you mean on the bus at us as mean older than us and the same question which we know. of newborn babies were torn from their mothers and given away and forced adoption i don't know. to this day mothers still search for grown children while adults look in hope for their birth parents.