taking a shot on russia's coded vaccine slovakia becomes the 13th nation to get supplies of what they can read as a 2nd a new member about to prove the job and it comes as the bloc itself struggles with vaccine shortages. keeping an eye on friends and family in new zealand says no one should be off limits when it comes to snitching on that rule breakers. also this hour a slapped with sanctions and yet again brussels and washington take aim at moscow over the jailing of probably critic. russia and says the opposition figurehead broke his parole and his trial was fair and has vowed to respond in kind.

watching our to international bring your live news update from our studio here in moscow welcome to the program. slovakia has become the 39th country to give the green light to russia's main coping vaccine it's the 2nd you nation to approve sputnik 3 and it comes as the blocks vaccine shortages continue to mount. has more on europe's floundering and occupation campaign. well there is dissent in the e.u. ranks who are now saying enough is enough with this slow rollout of the vaccine process that is being watched over by the e.u. let's take slovakia that's become the latest e.u. country to decide it needs to buy doses of the sputnik reback seen from russia its made an order of around 2000000 doses it is the 2nd e.u. nation to do that how green is already in new york relating its citizens with the

sputnik the vaccine and the czech republic has also said that it is interested in possibly buying it now this iraqi in the pm said it was necessary to buy this vaccine to boost the inoculation program. buying this russian vaccine was the right thing to do it's trustworthy anyone who wants the job will get one in the next 2 months we will get 1000000 vaccines and then in may in june another 1000000 i believe that by meeting the deadlines and promised supplies russia will prove that it's a stable partner that we can rely on in these hard times since the covert $1000.00 pandemic does not pay attention to geopolitical issues and the protection of human life prevails above all else we've seen fit to buy a russian vaccine so that slovak's who wish to can get vaccinated well that vaccine is due to be used in the next 2 weeks it hasn't of course that regulatory approval by the european union's e m a this is the european medicines agency but in an emergency such as a pandemic if

a country in the block decides that it gives approval of vaccine that hasn't been approved on that wide spectrum that can be used now the e.u. is wos according to it though or not something that's a problem within the block but something that's actually to do with russia the natives it seems that this will cause action diplomacy. because of such actions recently with some actors in particular once again christian. trying to discredit. that sector is why. all using racial these 2 shouldn't exceed. to gain geopolitical. however it's clear that it's the e.u. zone countries that have been questioning the efficacy of vaccines that they may has approved let's take the astra zeneca vaccine for example now both france and

germany raised questions about this vaccine president of france describing it as being quasi affective for the over 60 five's germany didn't recommend that it was given to the over 60 five's both have since made a u. turn and a singing a different turn poland on its part is apparently in discussions with china to potentially have the vaccine from that also another vaccine that has not been given approval by may well to move to the problems that the e.u. is facing austria and denmark and now in discussions with israel about potentially money fracturing vaccines in that country in a chance to boost the production to get moved back seems to its citizens chancellor 1 of austria suggesting could say in his words it was needed because it was exactly like waiting for catch up. my danish colleague has made

a good comparison i think she spoke of the catch up effect you probably all remember what ketchup bottle so used to be like were often took a long time before anything came out and then all of a sudden the whole torrent came out and it will be similar with vaccinations the e.u. is desperately trying to save face it's now launched a continent one project to try and boost the manufacturing of vaccines but for many in europe this is already too little too late and they feel that they really have to at this point go it alone. russia now has a 3rd vaccine and its arsenal against the pandemic coming back is expected to enter the market later this month and we had a chance to speak to the director of the center behind the shot. when you argue a pitiful pulled out of the can you explain what makes the kovi vaca vaccine different and uses a deactivated virus but what does that actually me. was when you know we used a process called in activation which basically means killing the virus vaccines

usually use a live virus or an already dead one we're dealing with an inactivated whole cell vaccine in approach that we've been developing for many years all of the vaccines at the of center are based on this method a significant number of our vaccines form part of the russian national vaccination calendar causing a lot of the book at what how long did it take to develop the vaccine how did you test it with no. it took almost a year and that's a very short time no western company has ever managed to produce a vaccine like this in such a short timeframe there are other technologies involved a key step was extracting the virus we went to various clinics and took blood samples from sick patients and tested for the presence of the virus one patient turned out to have a strain that was particularly amenable to our ends we were able to multi-line it and to cultivate it this was followed by the technological stages which manufactured the virus then purified it and then killed it the so-called in

activation process as a result we get an industrial strain of the virus fit for mass production you know which from the give you go across the sky doesn't ease the foreign manufacturers said it was impossible to create an effective vaccine in such a short period of time then the lancet magazine published these efficacy data and many more people wanted to buy our vaccine how will you convince the west that your vaccine is as effective. you know a because it would but if we do not have to prove the prestige of our institution in the products it makes the institute is 60 years old and it's connected to the victory over polio and yellow fever and we deliver drugs for these diseases abroad so we don't need any promotion the pandemic has created something akin to a state of war so all our resources have been redirected towards launching the vaccine into civilian circulation it's not about convincing anyone everything we do meets the requirements of the world health organization with which we have close

cooperation with the state has the task of solving the civil circulation issue and of doing the promotion the 1st challenge is to obtain the product and then to get it out there. it was on march 1st of last year that the 1st case of corona virus was detected in a russian national and the country has come a long way since that. friends

family and neighbors no one should be off the snooping radar when it comes to covert rule breakers at least according to new zealand's prime minister but has snitching become yet another symptom of the pendant like investigates. amid the many lockdowns thousands of face masks and gallons of hand sanitizer coverage is also encourage families and friends to reconnect check in more often to family quizzes but also question who we can really trust in new zealand kiwis have been encouraged to turn detective and report to any rule breakers they come across whether they be your friendly local greengrocer or your dear old grandma even with a full understanding of human fallibility it is not appropriate and it is not r.k. a members of the team of 5000000 to leave the rest of us down and it seems it's a proven practice remember last year when the shit number of do good snitching on

their neighbors was so overwhelming it crashed a police website we've had 4200 reports of people believing compline again it shows. determined. to ensure that everyone complies with us convinced the idea of turning us into a world of informers is the key to compliance leaders across the globe competed for the most creative ways to encourages all to tell allays matt opted for a cash incentive you know the old expression about snitches well in this case snitches get rewards we want to thank you for turning folks in and making sure we are all safe in washington police transformed a local up for residents into an express line to rat on your neighbor with government stay home stay healthy order in effect the bellevue police have developed an easy way for residents to report violations reports logged into the my

build view would generate a heat map showing where there are potentially illegal gatherings or business activity in italy such was the strength of the all seeing army they decided to make it official and created $60000.00 jobs for those who felt the need to daub in others and no souls were spared in germany as even politicians felt the wrath of the school is you'd think the public might have been appalled by those measures but the enthusiasm was so overwhelming that some police stations of the u.k. were receiving so many calls that they had to create a separate special hotline for the holder of curtain twitching do gooders now there's nothing wrong with asking people to remain vigilant and helpful we all have to do our bit but what happens when covert itself cost it's lost in the pandemic fatherly blows over the curtain twitchers will just be left nervously twitching hoping to once again be friends and not enemies. political tensions

continue to simmer and armenia just a day since huge crowds rallied in the capital of thousands in one part of europe and demand that the prime minister quit and around other part of town the embattled pm addressed supporters vowing to take the country back to the polls. if the parliament agrees to the terms of an election we will accept the early elections because we are sure that our people are able to freely express themselves and choose a legitimate government in armenia. fashion and also promise a referendum on a new constitution and an effort to win over his detractors but it seems not many were convinced. that the good we're strongly against the elections will hold the elections only when he leaves office will stand to the end to force the government out in a year there will be elections and people will choose who they want. but it doesn't mean what kind of elections should there be the country split in 2 i was in ukraine during the orange revolution they had

a similar scenario the country was also divided they say were stained for the people but who are the people the people are those living in the country and they don't need this division. let's take a look back at what led armenia to the current political upheaval last week the prime minister faced calls by the military to step down following months of unrest and all stems from last year's conflict with neighboring azerbaijan which resulted in a peace deal many armenians india as a humiliating defeat and turn accuse the military of an attempted coup and fire the country's top general and sparked mass rallies from both supporters and opponents of the prime minister we spoke to global relations analyst my fantastic about passion and political future. whether what's going on here is that after the defeat in the goma kind of our. population is looking for a strong leader and russia can only look strong if he stays in power otherwise he.

appears a lame duck who is weak on able to control the situations are getting in power until the elections is key to his chance of actually winning them i think there is a population that is probably a little bit divided between the kind of pragmatists who feel that he could have done much better against the bijani forces and those who feel that he's generally cost that territory to armenia because of perhaps he's a pro washington or inflation because all he's washed you century type is drones are destroyed the mediums defense is in the going to cut a buck but i was saying to accuse drones will be shot down extremely successfully in syria. by the same kind of russian technology that he tried to blame only oh so the question is why didn't he usual why didn't he procul the correct technology that would have. depended on media the armenians rather in the going to come out against those drones that would depend against in syria.

washington and brussels have slapped sanctions on a number of senior russian officials and entities are the jailing of come one critic alex and allow me moscow slammed it as outside interference and has about to respond in kind earlier are to join me in the studio with the details. these latest sanctions were announced by the european union and the united states almost simul taney so the american sanctions there wider in scope they target for example 7 officials unnamed officials but also 14 enterprises that the united states believes are engaged in manufacturing components for chemical and biological weapons the european sanctions they target russian officials or for officials the attorney general the head of the investigative committee the chief of the national guard the head of the federal penitentiary service so these officials have been slapped with restrictive measures travel bans visa restrictions for their role in

the arrest of election of on their leg rest and sentencing to an obvious he's now serving behind bars for violating the terms of his parole he had been given a suspended sentence years ago now for embezzling defrauding the company in russia we've learned from russian prosecutors that he had violated the terms of his suspended sentence dozens and dozens of times now germany and other countries they they believe that russia was behind his alleged poisoning russia's response to that has been look show it's a shred of proof because all we've heard so far is claims and what they've received from the german side from the european union is silence they've been stonewalled completely and utterly and russia here now says that it will respond to these sanctions as it always does we will definitely respond one of the basic rules of

diplomacy was to prosody still holds to be frank there's not much i can say about this we have made up position clear multiple occasions regarding the illegitimate one sided sanctions which our american colleagues results with or without good reason most of the time with as well as e.u. official. who take their cue from the americans when they have nothing to back up their claims with about the poisoning of the vulnerable when all those who cheated in a carefully hiding the facts that could shed light on what you actually happened to him and when at the same time instead of cooperating with russia they start punishing us well i think it does a disservice to those making such decisions as a response it will come ashore what is interesting also is the way the united states formulated. its argument for these sanctions and that is that the intelligence community in the united states believes and we've heard this many times before with high confidence that it was the russian state behind the

poisoning of alexina valley russia has said repeatedly there's been no investigation there's been no court no trial there's been no evidence presented how how are you going to come out and say that it was the russian state behind this and they you know there's been anything but a united front i mean just several weeks ago we heard european. pieces coming out and say why are we supporting alexina vonnie who you know if the if he had been arrested in any other country but russia we wouldn't even be saying his name and this is judy his his nationalist parts so he's been. saying very anti-semitic things anti muslim things homophobic things and this is you know presumably why amnesty international for example recently decided to deprive him of the label of prisoner of conscious amnesty international was no longer able to consider lexan of only

a prisoner of conscience given the fact that he advocated violence and discrimination and he has not retracted such statements this is obviously the opening salvo the united states concurrently as it was announcing these sanctions said that there would be more to come for other reasons for having for whatever out . now we've just got to wait for russia's response and i'm sure that europe will come out and say that this is unwarranted. we can now bring and martin dolls are a member of parliament of hamburg from germany is left party to discuss all this for there are these sanctions designed to actually hurt moscow or is it more of a symbolic move. yes applause it's a symbolic act but it's an act which from 1st it's international law there is a sanction regime by the united nation and there is no central regime by

international law also this same actions are. done because of geostrategic who i think president biden you know as a much more aggressive politics because he is the president of the korea list us american. companies meanwhile mr trump was of the national this one so now he's starting to force the conflict with russia and china and the european union that is who ing the site and i think this is the wrong way we should just stay true to iraq because sanctions always if they hurt anyone they hurt the population they don't hurt those people who are sanction it's an act of war which i don't think is a drop o. way of politics is more like you gamble us trying to bring forward with. things that contradict international more or even if you look at germany germany if someone is contradicting his probation like mr several

times he can be sent to prison as well so this no foundation and the organization for corroboration the crew version of chemical weapon weapons a test coolio chris he just to prove whether there had been use of chemical weapons and use it this there was no procedure which was cleaned to be a home regulation of the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons quite some of the should have been sent will send to the russian government this will be the working together often different governments and that didn't take place that was just the geostrategic you'll measure disapprobation which i don't like it or we don't like that we're on ticks you say that sanctions aren't the way to go but we do have russia r.t. coming out saying that they are going to respond in kind i think that's going to be sanctions i think also going to be symbolic or they might take things further

possibly. i don't know i think the best way would be if there would be a dialogue and if there would be some kind of i.q. or how to make it you turn on the politics and between us the european union on site and russia and china on the other side but if you look at the real reason of what's happening in the us a is fearing to say when you are already in the economic inside the last 8 in one year or so now we want to have it in the military and used to take it go away again and the european union is trying to get in that direction as i'm you. know played out which with more call in the list mentality imperialists and mentality that's not a good way to act we can see that in all corners of the of the world if you look at ukraine or the russian borders of if you look at syria if you look at the they have

been into action contradicting international law and contradicting a way of peaceful dialogue i would prefer that everyone gets back to that but i see it the one side is escalating i would be happy if the other side would say i don't want to escalate but i think there are a lot less crunch just as they are crossed it's not easy just to say i have always justified and i always try to step into the dialogue if the other side like the u.s. is getting more aggressive on the was getting more aggressive it's not easy i think everyone was human history was the democrat should stop this sanctions because it's a way of employing with the security of the whole world and was peace so that would be my 2 months that dialogue instead of escalation we also have

reports emerging claiming u.s. intelligence officials have established with a quote high confidence a link between russia's f.s.b. security service and now vali is poisoning do you think they have any evidence to back them up and if they did why would they stop at that high confidence. this is like your political debates the international politics this meet set an hour in the last 1020 years especially by the us by a group written out by 'd sometimes by the german government as well on our of firing motions by no evidence the iraq war was there that he you know war was done by that it was navy and war stand by there if you look back there is no evidence if they had evidence they wouldn't give it to the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons they were given for going to russia to have a clear procedure which is linked to international law and then we could see what was happening if if if they just bring forward something like they have are highly

feeling that something has happened nor i can't believe i only believe the evidence is there and if they have the evidence they will give it for sure otherwise. contradict international law that ition must come into action and say if you have something bring it fall remove for what due to our regulations. mess that we should work setting up it doesn't work like that so i think the short sprints are off from all sides of politicians of governments who want to cling to work or increase which is lead to international law to get back to international law and international regulations we've been speaking with martin dolls are a member of parliament of hamburg from germany's left party at thank you for joining us on the program today thank you to everybody.

a white employee an elite liberal arts college and the u.s. has quit or what she called an atmosphere of racial discrimination at the school teddy shot line an incident for us. i was required to attend training a professional developer retreat and at the training i was asked to talk about my race in the context of my childhood i had asked i told my director beforehand that i'm uncomfortable talking about race in the workplace we're not expected to talk about why it's not legal to ask about race in a job interview so i'm not clear on why we're expected to talk about it as a part of our job so i just said i'm a coder woods talking about race and she said that's fine just don't talk about is say you're uncomfortable so that is exactly what i did at the workshop the facilitators later told our group that any white person who is resistant to discussing their skin color when requested. is not actually uncomfortable

what they are doing it is a power play it's called way fragility and it is power play the president of the college dismissed the claims of a racially hostile environment as baseless but in a resignation letter shah said the climate at the college shifted dramatically following an instant back in 20. i mean is eating lunch i'm working the summer program so realizing how many calories is. done in stuff like this happens way too often where people just feel like.

despite the outcome of that investigation jodi shah believes the probe simply stoked racial tensions on campus. college is very invested in talking about race in a way that i find is racially hostile and so i believe you for going to talk about race let's talk about it in a meaningful authentic manner which we're not they're not doing residence live curriculum really is a critical and that teaches students that their identity is actually a social identity which is made up of immutable characteristics that is their race their gender their ethnicity but usually race at smith races a big one it's essentially telling them that their skin color is their destiny and

it's also setting up this strange dynamic or i would even call it a toxic dynamic between students of color and white students in which white students of color can only be free if white students confess their oppressor status or their white privilege as they call it. a dutch poet has pulled out of translating a poem by an african american author after criticism that the book that a black translator wasn't picked for the job artist's major product gives us his take on it. amanda gorman a young black author recited her poem the hills we climate biden's inauguration in it she called for peace and unity and the togetherness of the american people and her poem inspired many including dutch author marie clueless reinfeldt who is the youngest winner of the international booker prize award and she was chosen to translate gorman's work into dutch at

a time of increased polarization amanda gorman shows in her young fellows the power of spoken warrant the power of frequency the power of someone who looks to the future instead of looking down when i was asked to translate well i could do was say yes and get behind her but it seems reinfeld underestimated the increasing polarization of today's perpetually offended society the announcement quickly caused an uproar why because gorman is black and reinbold who is translating her is white and as we know in 2041 that is just simply unacceptable naturally the mounting criticisms led brian bell to reject the assignment completely i'm shocked by the opera or around mine volume and in the dissemination of amanda garments message and i understand people who feel hurt by the choice so yet again the fragile her always a fan.