among the stories going to shape the week. russia's. social networks pay for. debate. should facebook profit on someone else's work without giving them some. merit. social media. ecosystem is really out of control in terms of how it is monetize.

millions left without power and water as authorities. arrested for a conservative journalist who was covering the rally. i feel that conservative. america is descending into something that i would never experience. with the top stories from the past 7 days on right up to the moment. this is the weekly r t international. russia has accused brussels of politicizing the coronavirus. chief. made controversial comments questioning moscow's motives

in offering to help the block with its. 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 we still wonder why russia is offering theoretically millions and millions of doses while not sufficiently progress in vaccinating the own people russia's 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 district 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 mess 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 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 fact seen as soon as russia became the 1st country globally to write that 1000 vaccine president clinton 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 scientific community. business entities have repeatedly publicly stressed that vaccination of its own citizens constitutes an absolute priority for russia in its fight against covert 19 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 seen success russia isn't 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 to mind is something that moscow raised recently to 2 notes you just we haven't had any reports about vaccine shortages and us domestic demand for this vaccine are still gathering momentum us for demand for the russian vaccine

of it is indeed high it's so high that it 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 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 potch moscow says it's the straighted by brussels consistently interfering and it's an tun and it looks like a we might be seeing the same story instead of trying to resolve its own issues the e.u. is trying to deflect attention and undermine your country he's trying to offer a helping hand. a campaign to boycott facebook launched in a stream of this week that's after the tech giant blog news posts on its platform

in the country over a proposed law to make social networks pay publishers for news content calibra has called it abuse of power r t satirist in chief simon right it's us his take. australia's government is fully coming to terms with the fact that 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 separate restricting people in australia from viewing news content or that. you know it's better someone with an australian out then explained that this morning if you visit a news sciex and astronomy aside by the social media platform you'll find there are no posts you can't 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 is a good one that they pay to produce the 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 hand 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 it is go on to twitter or google instead. 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 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. treasury gets today's events to confirm for all the strains is the market power. of the media digital giants these digital giants very very large. in our economy.

and on the digital landscape let's not get carried away here i mean it's only facebook in the only people that use facebook now as 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 week facebook is on another social media platform. or. doctors can deal with google that will see his media outlets get paid for their content that's one australian he's really cornered the market in the brainwashing going you know what there is always. bigger and. well in addition to news post facebook also blocked a number of key us truly in government pages including health portman's emergency services and trade unions the company later commented on the issue saying those accounts had been inadvertently impacted on the c international weighed in saying facebook's willingness to control information that people rely on is extremely concerning and cuttingly quote facebook's willingness to block credible news

sources stands in sharp distinction to the company's per track record in addressing the spread of hateful content on the platform meanwhile canada has bucked australian it's about to work is considering similar legislation to make facebook page news publishers and says it will not be intimidated earlier i got the thoughts of a number of guests on the stand off di longer. 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. content of which facebook reliance on it 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 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 but 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 that 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 ecosystem similar to a a well at the time if we all remembered dial up you know 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 we actually have to make the grown up decisions. deadly winter storm sweeping across the southern united states have now taken the lives of 58 people and left millions of americans without electricity clean water for days 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 3 decades it's led to rolling blackouts and extensive damage to homes this is this is. very nice for ladies.

and that is the other imbra oh it's a game due to the 2 to wriggle the parent being with here for the birth of. meanwhile texas senator ted cruz has come under fire after he flew to the mexican resort city of cancun during the disaster he described as a mistake when he returned the next day but didn't avert the twitter storm that followed and he's not the only official in hot water a local mirror was forced to step down after his response to president residents' pleas for help no one knows you or 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 providers or any other service owes you nothing it's pretty bad that texans just can't we're told every other part of the country this would have been

a huge issue in the late weeks in march for the search. for 60. 2 cold. got all the blankets out we try to 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. while authorities in texas struggled to keep power grids up and running some blame wind turbines that completely froze for with the disaster others however lay the blame squarely on the local government's doorstep it will blow up and take this to. 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. aren't seeing new york but another suggested indication of a decline in the protracted military presence on capitol hill and around $5000.00 national guard troops are expected to remain in washington until the middle of next month the decision was reportedly made over lingering concerns of violence there's r.t. america's foreign with more. 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 on we have a lot of these members where they're actually staying there was 26000 troops here during the inauguration the numbers starting to go down but they want to have 5000 troops here scheduled again like you said till march 4th because you have a lot of cuban members talking underground and in sub 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. have been arrested after a conservative journalist another demonstration we've spoken exclusively to the victim her reaction is more coming your way after this short break.

join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to us from the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see you then. is your media a reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe from. isolation community. are you going the right way or are you being less. direct. what is true what is faith. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us

in the depths. aura made in the shallowness. 21 minutes into the program welcome back to black lives matter activists have reportedly been charged with harassment and attempted assault footage appears to show them attacking a conservative journalist who was covering the rally. i didn't badly there was something going on that these people who are eager to get her drug ring are who are these reports was it was your brother your bedroom she's a pushover you regarding the trauma of her yeah that's right. i think 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. tara was covering the rally when demonstrators identified her as a conservative reporter can be heard calling her a trump supporter under nutsy the journalist who works independently also claims nearby police ignored her calls for help and one point a protester even appears to be used not be in her face. now in order for true peace to occur you need to have people to have that someone discoursed 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 and i can 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 violence actually occurring from the left onto the right we see censorship that's going on and it's not even really being. occur. to eat or to treat the pun demick has pushed italy's most vulnerable to the brink some face a daily dilemma of whether to feed themselves or to care of their medical needs in

2020 the number of people on the breadline grew 517-3000 while just under a 3rd of a tellings or not risk of poverty according to the organization for economic cooperation and development we asked people there are coping. on several troll boy picture articles that are 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 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 lock 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 leading health experts insists the current system of regional restrictions is ineffective the government scientific committee this week urged ministers to follow other european countries in implementing stricter measures was what local pharmacist told us about the situation. if you go and it was done this year has definitely been a strange one the global pandemic has brought a number of sectors to their knees and among these is certainly the poorest people who are having the greatest difficulties finding drugs and buying medicine many people can't even afford to buy drugs at a reduced price donating medicines brings a smile to the faces of people who can be treated the crisis is devastating and there are people who even have to make a choice between eating and treating themselves and they're all up and then.

they've been damaged has increased poverty and palermo it's quite high in the year before the pandemic were opened 3 days a week but now due to come it would have to open 5 days a week people don't work and can't even pay for mad cents 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're also struggling. now the history of african americans is a story heard often today but what about black russians during the soviet union it's a fascinating chapter of the nation's past and we delve into it next in our revered by the people themselves block in the u.s.s.r. begins in moment.

the world is driven by shaped by. the dares thinks. we dare to ask.

it's been decades since the fall of spain's fascist regime but old wounds still haven't emailed. me from the old to make coffee to mug they can buy me some poll me on the bus at the 6 mean old of the next and i think ultimately. ends of newborn babies were torn from their mothers and given away and forced adoption. to this day mothers still search for grown children adults look in hope for their parents. you know what started my interest i should say black americans in the soviet union in the thirty's was finding this portrait even though i had gone to grad school

with a master's degree in russian literature i speak russian and i had lived over there in the late eighty's finding this portrait was was a stunning development for me how did i not know about this. i didn't know that this was a phenomenon that there were many. african-americans who went to russia in the in the thirty's. in the 1920 s. and thirty's several 100 african-americans moved to the soviet union and many of the descendants still live in russia. and name it the most because you know not washed but also up out of stock yes you got. some delays at the dock and. the rest of the day meet here the 1st day like hey you're part of that i want to see question and then like wait wait wait. the mashup that also. back home black americans suffering from racism and

a complete lack of prospects. is that they love us what the deal an idealization after over a mere. so my 3 of them. one by else a story of by doing. so they decided to leave everything behind and start a new life in a country about which they knew almost nothing at all some of dear. who are workers who really do need to know keep your ground grid. moulay a dwarf you don't want to go or. a significant crossing on a from the comfort of you and your glory and you know almost a 100 years later the history is repeating itself my great grandfather george time went to russia. on possible worst try to go anywhere why not mean. when i come here.