artie's headline news the e.u. is locked down showdown brussels pressures reluctant members to open up their borders to get the bloc back on the move but 6 key states say they're staying shut . across the atlantic half a 1000000 american covert deaths and counting yet no mass vaccination in sight but despite the morbid milestone president biden escapes the criticism previously leveled at donald trump's handling of the crisis. and we hear from the canadian man who received hundreds of death threats and felt forced to move home after testing positive for coping.

with 247 headline news this is r.t. international from moscow my name is called in bright welcome to the program 1st of the e.u. is urging 6 member states to ease their covert control measures in particular bans on entering or leaving countries that calls border tension and disrupt economies the commission's giving the states 10 days to respond with the details he has peter oliver in berlin. the e.u. commission currently at all do with 6 member states who have unilaterally put in place border restrictions of one type or and other in order to try and stop the spread of covert 19 whether that's the spread of the virus in general or the stop of the spread of mutated versions particularly here in germany that's been a top issue you commission are buying up though they're not happy with the situation the commission has been clear without a coordinated approach among 27 member states we risk fragmentation and disruptions to free movement into a supply chain is something we have witnessed again in the past 2 weeks so who's on

the naughty list belgium germany denmark hungry finland and sweden have all been given it 10 days to provide a good reason why they put these restrictions on freedom of movement in place or to relax the restrictions that have been put there the e.u. commission's unlikely to win easily on this one we've heard from the german side who've defended their move these measures obviously put a massive strain on border regions commuters and the transport of goods and the single market but the protection of our citizens aspire amount finland has also issued a statement saying that yes they recognize this is far from ideal but they deem it necessary the recalcitrant member states of all received letters this week saying that a means that they are trying to achieve can be reached through different means we believe that the objective justifiably pursued by germany the protection of public

health during the pandemic could be attained by less restrictive measures here in germany any travel is coming from the czech republic from slovakia or from the tirol region of austria where you've got to provide on arrival at the border a negative covert test that's resulted in these huge tailed by. acts of traffic causing real disruption on the border with germany brussels is essentially fighting a battle now with the member states over their. national interests they want to keep covert out of their countries but the e.u. has a duty as it sees it to keep freedom of movement going within the block and those 2 things coming together over this pandemic. so let's go live to brussels now and talk to political commentator shaun bricmont welcome back to r.t. so the 6 countries have 10 days to respond what do you think their response is

going to be 10 days down the line. well that's difficult to predict. i don't know what sanctions the you could take against them one of them is my own counsel. would be happy if they released the rest fictions with. the argument that you have that issue ease the restrictions are going to hurt the it's not going to help spreading the virus seems to be a bigger list of need to have a station there are the less the way this is allowed to securely. maybe not all of a stations are necessary but in general i think it's a good idea if you want to. use the. spreading to have these best. people other ways how did it spread in the 1st place when jane had to maintenance and there were. people and her stuff. and then the. general console it seems to me that and it seems to me that the e.u. is. that people are having to live in europe people aren't happy than even you have

they don't think the lead in. their state is still it's over and that's why the elections in the. within of you know is how much the power of the european union has and of their lives including for this question well at least in principle because you can does a big deal between and see what happens with it in uganda whether when they do in the village or budget because they don't hold your seeing so you can do anything little freedom with the. italian government this is really extraordinary they have . succeeded in putting together was. about these both on the hate and the left together with some of the used to be 'd president of the european central bank and the 6 countries we're talking about have a not for want of a better description the usual troublemakers brussels usually has a phone aside it's

a major members the likes of belgium and also germany and denmark so i was you say presumably they have good reason for wanting to keep their borders closed at the moment are you surprised the commission is therefore basically giving an ultimatum . i think in time but you see there's a problem and then that and then. there are different nations and they think they're going to be the center laser. and i'm going to work those 3 and then gary and them. and some extend this will be the america they're all. being and manage of. course and then the. well the dog and then the constant discussion then. that's a problem in the constitution which is intrinsic to the european construction doesn't depend on what but this is the truth in german but it's intrinsic to the brain that

we try to make once we define people and example that will always not on the verge of collapse. of the last chance you know the 2 views of the french speaking people it's a. key test of the one side of the european commission being able to keep members in check in order as it were to all stick to the same rules or a test of individual member sovereignty in these extremely unusual times. what do you mean i mean there have been many days there's crazies there's been the . crazies which is going on now. and again and the example and hunger. but none of these tests is fairly flying of. the european union rules of. the law they'll be new cases and.

it's never going to stop and. dismantle the you know the moon that's not going to happen and. that's the question. she needs in the. nation of its. in terms of handling this then what else could be done because one of the very key cornerstones of the european union is that free movement of of people and of trade but then equally if you've got the big economic powerhouse germany saying no we want to shop when we want to that kind of sets a precedent for the other 27 members further down the line or heaven forbid this happens again in future. you know the. german saying that. you know the whole of the german nation. and the. others and you don't wait i don't do that because the good news you know the good good the world there's

because of migration because that will kinds of other reasons if you will you can have these reasons include the world the us but i don't see where the. whole idea is that the floor is doing to. and then the market because eventually the. government people and that's what they do. ok well 10 days from now i guess we'll see who blinks 1st for the lonely brussels thanks for joining us on r.t. and you live in the east. thank you well. next meanwhile local leaders in belgium's flanders region are desperate to get their hands on more astra zeneca jobs but they say the firms left them in the lurch after saying that they would be able to deliver an agreed number of covert shot the flemish health minister went to the shortage and also took a bit maternal for the values into living there job currently there are 3 vaccines available to belgians pfizer and the oxford astra zeneca job the country's also

ordered more shots from other suppliers which are still undergoing trials people wishing to get a job though don't get to choose which one they'll receive and they won't find out until it's about to be administered we asked people in brussels what they thought of that. the situation is very strange as we don't know what we're being inoculated with if it's good or bad that's another question it's not a problem for me but i can understand it could deter some people. we hear about different creative area for different vaccines that one is better than they are there and reports to that effect if people aren't important and if the information is withheld i understand why some people are refusing to make their own choice it's understandable i think we don't know much where we are being given a little information but there are certainly people who are suspicious and the lack of information doesn't help we. have one brussels intensive care unit says not giving people a choice could adversely affect the belgian vaccination program. they get their

ducks in issues important but it's also something you have to choose just self and this is a personal decision to move to the vaccination so therefore i think that it's quite important to get inform of the vaccine now to be concerned over the last couple of weeks was that the information spread all over the media and even in the scientific world question whether some backseats were more effective than others some vaccines were inducing more reaction than others and therefore i think that information spreads all over the community and therefore people are questioning whether they can select the type of vaccine they want to choose for their future so it's understandable that people want to know exactly what they get spore we noticing it is a rush towards getting those of one vaccine specially deployed to iraq so you can and many people question whether they would accept the other one meaning you know astra

zeneca vaccine and therefore it seems that it's slowing the number of people getting being vaccinated. as president joe biden sold it all flags on federal property to be flown at hamas to mock the hof a 1000000 american deaths from covert but it is kind of open reports media that are still glowing and that praise for his approach to the pandemic despite there being little difference to that of the previous administration. america's death toll from covert 19 is now more than a half a 1000000 that's more than world war 2 and vietnam combined biden marked the occasion with a solemn ceremony at the white house on monday that's more lives lost to this virus than any other nation on earth. but as rick knowledge the scale of this mass death in america. remember each person the life they lived on the

campaign trail biden castigated donald trump for his mishandling of the pandemic he promised that when he got into office he would turn things around he seems to have tempered expectations a bit as back in january he said he was powerless to change the trajectory of covert 19 and his anti co the defense has one key aspect where malice everyone would be mandated to wear a mask mask mandates mask mask in place or mask for godsake. word mask if not to yourself your loved ones while masks are proven to stop the spread of coded but is that it he's got the same advisor the trump pad dr now says will probably be wearing masks until 2022 do you think americans will still be wearing masks for example and 20 twentieth's. you know i think it is possible that that's the case many hope that under biden mass vaccinations might save the day but

so far it does not look that way the next few months masks. are the best defense against kuvin 90 biden even visited a farm a facility to show he's got a handle on things however he says that vaccines won't be available to everyone until mid-summer we're now on track to have enough vaccine supply for all of us by the end of july seems like the amount of time donald trump that it took the child ministration to develop this vaccine which is record time now the by the ministration say says that will take just as much time in order to have enough doses to have had since november to start planning his approach to what do you do what do you spend november december january doing well he had a stack of executive orders waiting on his desk to star in it seems bizarre because we know that there are millions upon. millions of those already out there perhaps he's just lowering expectations now you might think that mainstream media would now

lash out on biden just like they did on his predecessor remember when all the deaths were being blamed on donald trump but think again we see with president biden he's demonstrated to the country what a difference. the change of presidents has made president biden is confronting this enormous loss directly and publicly help americans heal on any front that something good so biden is uniquely qualified to do resident joe biden giving america a message tonight them and one i think the only this president president could give not the former one seems that joe biden is being judged by a different set of standards deaths are rising but he is not catching any flak oh well i guess we should all just get used to wearing masks for another year the major media isn't demanding the rollout 'd be sooner because there are guys in office the business a media that said a vaccine would be impossible to get out in 2020 and trump made that happen and

instead of the media focusing on what's happening with the bye to mr ration and their vaccinations instead we're seeing stories about joe biden's dog and we're seeing stories about him playing video games with his grandchildren if donald trump was playing video games with his grandchildren at camp david it would be a national scandal and they would say he has graham was blood on his hands of course and joe biden's read that he could play video games with his grandchildren at camp david and say that it's going to be till the end of july until we have enough vaccinations you're the president united states make it happen that's what plenty of americans are asking but of course some media is now asking that because it's their guy and they're going to protect him and they're going to do their brand of neat bad journalism and it's all going to be fluff and softball and human interest stories for the next you know 3 and a half years i. want to kind of discovered victims as well and that the stigma attached to the disease is stopping many people from coming forward if they have

symptoms colon kroenke received hundreds of death threats softer it was revealed he called the virus. a lot of people are so right about having kobe not because of it's going to harm them but it's because they're worried of what the put the the population around them will think when you shame somebody and when you have this big stigma on people for having called it a lot of people who are sick you know that might have a sniffle or a sore throat or something they don't bother going to get tested because they they feel like they're going to be shamed so or shunned and so a lot of people end up hiding their symptoms and that's an issue because then you're not getting a true number on cases and and you know you have people going around spreading the virus not knowingly the they have the virus because they're too worried about what people might think that they have the virus. he began getting hundreds of death threats a day off the becoming infected in october with people blaming him on social media for the subsequent public restrictions the abuse even made him feel that he had to move to the other side of the country. people attacked me for no reason in new

brunswick that's my hometown that's where i'm from there's a video that was on october 31st of me saying that i couldn't taste or smell anything and the backgrounds were a kind of a you tube video on this so that you know creates allergies where i can't taste her might and you know my nose gets blocked up in and that's what i was relating it to and that's why the 2nd day i booked a task is like wait it's still there you know it could be covert i put out of the state so i'm just going to double check i'm pretty sure it's not because my spouse prior tested negative for covert $191.00 of the guys i was on the trip with who came home early from calgary he tested also negative for over $1000.00 which he actually had symptoms so i was like ok there's probably a very slim chance that i have 19 and when i was travelling from calgary back to new brunswick i was considered an essential worker so we were required to isolate and i didn't have symptoms at that time my symptoms didn't come to 31st and i was coming back to new brunswick on the 24th of october. bush was part of the

international space station has started showing signs of age repairs are underway to repair 6 cracks that have appeared in the 2 decades old module but leaking air according to russian space agency. all the breaches have been temporarily sealed but further investigation is needed pressure has dropped inside the orbiting station but it's far from emergency levels we spoke to a cosmonaut about what these leaks could mean for the future of the i.s.a.'s. long as the cracks have existed for some time now this is been long known and talked about to my mind they pose no threat to the team and flight security at least for now but this is an alarming sign it shows that the station has been functioning could 20 years in that cell is under extreme conditions there's such a thing as metal fatigue and in principle we can expect these inconveniences to repeat i'll give you an example the station goes round the earth every 90 minutes

so roughly speaking every 45 minutes it's and said oh well it's minus 150 degrees celsius and for the next 45 minutes the station is exposed to the sun but the temperature gets much higher to over 100 degrees so just imagine put plenty is 16 cycles a day 6 temperature fluctuations will affect the shell of the 22 years and any kind of metal would get tired when it comes to talk of renewing the station maybe not change it completely but possibly it is running out of its resource in some aspects it was designed for a short term and the management team and all the countries involved understand that and that's why there are thoughts about how to proceed. israel's be forced to shut its beaches off an oil spill that's being described as one of the most disastrous in the country's history expert system assessing the damage but it's expected to take decades to clean up 'd.

it's the 1st by district appears to. be willing to get out of commission to get money from. it's. give yourself more dramatic a percent of the beach as it is where. it would be the ropes. and no between. the they came to us covered in tar in their necks inside and out were full of tar obviously we had to clear their breeding channels as fast as possible and after that we clean the tar from their digestive system we continue to feed them

substances like the mayonnaise which cleans the system and breaks down the tar i hope that in a week or 2 these guys will start eating on their own to that we can see that they are healthy and gaining weight we are able to release them into the sea. came here to the beach today to clean all the tar that was built into the ocean and now it's on the beaches we did it work we came here to clean it up for the wildlife so that wildlife can continue living normally my heart wanted to be at the beach like a missin as a was able to i want to help the environment damaged by the spill the oil the target and the still coming to our beaches.

used to be brutus you know we still don't know for sure to do long. beach is. on because the underwater to put example. to do. this to. uses. should be only for some reason. it was an accident maybe no more example. as follows. ok elsewhere around the world this is niagara falls but not a view of it you see every day severe cold as partially frozen the natural landmarks and despite the freezing temperatures the rare occurrence is still attracting many tourists the falls haven't completely iced over the water is

continuing to flow underneath thick sheets of ice. hundreds of italian at a table workers have gathered outside rome's oldest theater they're calling on the government to provide more support for the sector and that the country's reopened it's been a year since italy's theatres and cinemas closed due to code in 1000 restrictions actors musicians artists and answers carried banners saying culture is. thousands in ecuador protesting against alleged electoral fraud in recent presidential elections and are demanding a vote recount protest a supporting indigenous and environmentalist candidate could paris and 30 be marching for days to reach the capital quito he got 19.4 percent of the vote which leaves him out of the runoff in april the state attorneys opened an investigation to determine if fraud occurred. and that's the way it looks from moscow so far this

wednesday thanks for checking in with us this hour i'm calling about your next update in 35 minutes see that. the british and american governments. often being accused of destroying lives in their own interests or you see in this these techniques is the state devising methods to end to essentially destroy the personality of an individual. by scientific means this is how one doctor's theories were allegedly used in psychological warfare against prisoners deemed a danger to the state that was the foundation for the method of psychological interrogation psychological torture. disseminated from 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. it's an article of faith russian liberals did not like a lot of your mood up until now the russian liberals have been chanted with the western so-called western values western ideological localism is changing its focus of disparages tradition a treatise on the family and even logic for russian liberals this appears to be going too far are russian liberals falling out of love with the west. is your media a reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe from.

isolation for community. are you going the right way or are you being led. by a. what is true what is faith. in a world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. for a mate in the shallowest. we're more politicized than ever we're more polarized than ever in the 21st century when speed is measured in megabytes per 2nd. electronic mail electronic money electronic media infinite possibilities for exchanging information i mean when. freedom of speech and social media

bends censorship and double standards who should judge what can be said online. the internet audience snow totals almost 4500000000 almost all of them are active social network users but one wrong move on their pages deleted digital. don't exist anymore. not who runs the show on the web how can anyone stand up to the tech giants if even the heads of state face the threat of being banned is there any limits to hold that virtual. revolution will wane.

greetings and salutation well well well my friends it appears our freedom of speech is under attack. yes working in the world of independent news media for just over 10 years now i have lost count of how many

times i have heard that phrase get thrown around our freedom of speech is under attack. tragically most of the time it's used as click bait the way to lure independent thinkers and activists to a site or article by appealing to their very real fears of losing our very precious 1st amendment rights of free speech and assembly to an overbearing government it's also been used quite quite often as a tool of the ego test you know how many times have we seen the pampered privileged claim that their free speech is under attack whenever they've been forced to face the real world consequences for their actions and words yeah everybody loves to claim censorship when suddenly faced with you know having to take responsibility for the idiotic and cruel things they say often times in situations or conversations that any logical caring and tactful person would realize it's best to keep the 1st shot or choose your words wisely if you're going to.