slovakia's prime minister rejects calls to not use russia make the vaccine as the country's vaccination campaign gets bogged down by politics. u.k. medical workers are outraged after the government offers them a pay rise of only one per cent. and a dream holiday turns nightmare we hear from a passenger who was trapped on an italian cruise ship during a covert outbreak which resulted in the deaths of 3 people. will be refused to inform us that there were cases of pool to show that they tested positive there was no suspicion that indeed that was ill people they refused to give us information.

it's the top of the hour and that in you know what that means time to watch r t international i'm your host donald quarter welcome to the program. the prime minister of slovakia has defended his decision to acquire russia sputnik the coronavirus vaccine he's faced a wave of criticism after the country received its 1st delivery of the shot earlier my colleague sandra farmer and taylor went through the story. over the past year we've heard time and time again that unity is needed in the fight against the coronavirus when it comes to vaccines though it seems that our unity falls apart and while political shenanigans begin his purchase of russia sputnik seem the latest of around 40 countries globally to do so has made very clear because the prime minister was forced to defend his decision to critics spoke out saying they

want to refund the sputnik vaccine will not go back to russia it will save lives in slovakia i would never give it up our country's a fundamental part of the european union but i cannot turn down a quality vaccine that will save our people because it's made in russia i'm not a murderer so why did the scenes all the sputnik the flying out for most go to the east of here on monday bring about such backlash well the russian vaccine has not been registered by the european union yet the approval process is in fact just beginning but as prime minister said he cannot in good conscience allow himself to stand by and wait for red tape to be cut while his citizens are dying so widespread then is this criticism is it a couple of voices or is the really facing some sort of you know substantial revote here while the purchase of those 2000000 jobs has really put the government in disarray so 2 of the 4 parties who make up the ruling coalition have spoken out one

in fact has proposed shuffle of the entire cabinet the other said he might even leave the coalition meanwhile the foreign minister foreign affairs minister very diplomatically to clades the sputnik the is not just a frank scene but quote a tool of hybrid war so it puts people a titian's who all supposed to put the welfare of best citizens of one else on here 5 miles thing in trying to send back a vaccine that could save thousands of lives for its part looking at this point. to call in fighting said ok we'll take the vaccines back and we won't even ask for the compensation as per the contract and this is something that the slovakian pm actually wrote about specifically how it expose the hypocrisy of his critics they have been seeing hybrid war jew political russian weapons all kinds of nonsense that we should be ashamed off when the russians came and offered to take the vaccine back with no repercussions everyone suddenly became quiet why couldn't the

prime minister choose to talk to vice scene that had been approved by the why he decided to take this route. and of course then we've seen all of your use the. while it's no secret tool that the european union is failing in its task of vaccinating its 450000000 strong population its production is slow its rollout is even slow it's been such a p.r. and health disaster that brussels was even forced to publicly apologize so frustration desperation pushing sutton even member states to look beyond the block for help and they're looking to russia so hungry has registered sputnik the slovakia to now. san marino also after it's easy to prove vaccines were delayed rumors that the czech republic an all star also next in line so pretty appetite is growing as is a lack of faith in brussels as food brussels and the e.u.

which is obviously all about being a single cohesive union where everything is centralized all these individual member states splintering off and breaking ranks is actually quite humiliating and in a sign that it doesn't even really have faith in its own ability to handle this crisis on friday a spokesperson said that countries can independently acquire jobs approved by the block or not whether they're from russia from china or wherever else so we're clearly seeing his shift within the e.u. member states starting to lose faith and confidence splintering from the union when it comes to vaccines and this latest saga in slovakia showing as we've seen from the very beginning that not even vaccines in the middle of a global pandemic are immune from being politicized. meanwhile in south america the president of venezuela nicolas maduro and 1st lady cecilia flores have been inoculated with the 1st dose of sputnik veep the inaugural 100000 shots arrived in

the country last month and were given to the most vulnerable demographics as well as to medical workers footage of the presidential couple receiving the russian shot was broadcast on. a kick in the teeth that's what the british medical association is calling the government's proposed one percent pay rise for health care workers union say it undermines the value of those workers who quote kept the country alive during the cold crisis despite the u.k. the u.k.'s national health service set to receive an extra $500000000.00 pounds per year under the deal it would still likely result in a real term pay cut for staff as inflation in the u.k. is predicted to reach 1.5 percent this year it comes despite the government's repeated promises of rewarding frontline staff. our n.h.s. is the b. team heart of this country it is important that we support our really just want to see fantastic frontline workers paid properly we absolutely want to.

reward n.h.s. stuff for what they've done i would be making sure that we fight to have that. reward i mean i guess the government would have to prioritize and i think nurses and the n.h.s. in general is something that we should prioritize at this moment and i do think they should probably receive more than one percent but it's a symbolic one percent you know what's that's not going to have any impact on them it just feels like a very it's like a very weak offer from the government it's not right you know there's always companies that made so much money off the back of that but those have been in the middle of it haven't done so well and jess is critically on the fund it. you know the government can afford lots of other things you look at all the calm trucks they've been given to their friends a leading british nurses union has even set up a strike fund over the deal labor party leader kier starmer has also dismissed the

proposal saying quote covert heroes deserve better support but the british health secretary has defended the offer calling it affordable given covens devastating impact on economies we've got the opinion of a u.k. think tank and a nurse on the issue. but not least because one can say as nor as he got his consent or nothing that nazis have done and any chance for us in general for this country jed in the course of the pandemic we've already had 10 years of my stay to tea and ask lawyers to meet you not that i think you can imagine any. demoralized the tango and the senate floor speech from government last night we had at least a small amount of hall that asked our government and clout for it is to be quite honest budget you might actually show. we are and the appreciation for it is and they nicked unfortunately that was a missed opportunity for the government i think it's fairly understandable that

public servants who are doing a really difficult job are a really difficult time would feel that they ought to be rewarded more fair to the u.k. he's a wealthy nation if we devalued our resources fairly i think there'd be a lot more to be ample sco for low paid workers and critical work as such the sister gets a. more substantial pay rise it's not hard to find examples of how better more cold but. government administration or a fairer taxation system could find the money to give the nurses who've been literally saving lives keeping the country running through this period of the more generous offer. in other news u.s. capitol police have requested that more than 2000 national guard troops remain in washington d.c. for another 2 months and with tensions remaining higher after the january riots

police authorities in the media seem intent on finding threats even when the evidence doesn't always 'd lead their kaleb moppin explains. it is no exaggeration to say that there was serious panic in the lead up to march 4th a new threat against the u.s. capitol a possible militia plot to storm the capitol as early as tomorrow we are watching this threat stream the information social media other sources with respect to this particular day march 4th federal law enforcement is on full alert after warnings from intelligence officials that another attack on the u.s. capitol could be a minute preparations were serious hundreds of national guard patrolling the area capitol police released a statement on wednesday warning possible plot to breach the capitol by an unidentified militia group a local businesses have warned tenants about possible protests you might have gotten the impression watching meteor reports that u.s. officials were bracing for the purge as citizens rushed to get going before

commencement. we advice you to get off the streets as quickly as possible it'll soon be a war there. so what happened when the fateful day finally arrived nothing what does it take to put the u.s. government on edge apparently just some lame internet rumors it all started with q. and a on conspiracy theorists on the internet they said that the inauguration of joe biden was a big false flag and that the pentagon was planning to install donald trump on march 4th the original inauguration date in u.s. history well obviously that did not happen now the main conspiracy theory of cuban on is the idea that a group of satanic blood drinking pedophiles have seized control of the u.s. government and media apparatus and that donald trump and his allies are waging a heroic covert war against them behind the scenes some of blame donald trump for not denouncing the militia groups and cuban on conspiracy theorists who rally

behind him you know the president has a responsibility to tell him to stay down this road. it is credible it's real human on conspiracy theories and delusions aside joe biden won the election he has been inaugurated so why is the country still on edge and blaming the former president there were no violent actions or big protests on march 4th but law enforcement was on high alert the whole thing was taken very very seriously the department continues to work with all of them. and is based on the intelligence that we have the department has taken immediate steps to enhance our security posture and stuffing for a number of days to include much the fool the u.s. house of representatives even canceled their meeting later nancy pelosi insisted that the meeting was not cancelled just moved to an earlier time if in fact there's any trouble makers around and it makes sense. i don't

think anybody should take any encouragement that because some troublemakers might show up and that we change the whole schedule now we just moved in a few hours there's now a call to extend the national guard presence around the u.s. capitol just in case internet liberals have decided that a secret nazi conspiracy has taken over the republican party their proof the shape of the stage at sea-tac apocalyptic scenarios are now starting to become a regular aspect of american political discourse and i actually have a lot of conservative friends and a lot of populists conservative friends and a lot of trump supporters. and none of the had talked about this until the mainstream media brought it up rumors only cause panic if the rumors are given air by the right you know media i just think it's a justification to not put this in ministries in the position where they have to

actually face the failures that they've had almost only a month and a half of being in office people were talking about a $2000.00 check that's what they were. and no one knows where their checks that i want to hear about that where the money or where the health care you know what's going on in our economy right now you know those are the things we don't see anyone once again holding biden accountable in the same way that we expect the child to be unaccountable i promise you nobody going to the capitol to the day the me media's been claiming this blood drinking satanic pedophiles secret cryptic nazi symbols false flag inaugurations all of this would make a great hollywood movie or netflix mini series but in the real world america seems to have some pretty big problems like crumbling infrastructure unpopular wars and cultural polarization however our political discourse seems to be stuck in fantasyland caleb mop and artsy new york meanwhile coverage of donald trump's high

profile return to the media spotlight at the conservative political action conference has been rapidly disappearing from you tube stance of belief or making false claims about last year's election result on his podcast artie's ben swann asked the selection of guests for their take on the clampdown. governments and the public really have lost control of of what's going on online it gets to a real scary place when every discussion has to be more about so who knows when in fact we need to actually hear a broader discussion it's a fine line between. protecting and sensory and creating a bunch of members of society who can't have critical conversation of the future because they're afraid and not only might they be canceled just from from existing on line or in on other ways but their whole lives could in fact their lives could

be canceled if they if they step too far one way or the other when you read it in a constitutional republic where free speech and the 1st amendment is protected it's the 1st amendment for a reason it's the most important because all the others don't matter if you can't talk about them for some reason we've just focused all of our aggression on donald trump and never really looked at those larger if you logical institutionalized norms that the united states is is based on what many trump is so significant and remember he was discounted in the beginning was that he was able to speak to people who felt like they've not been spoken to without donald trump if this part of the republican party would arguably should have shrunk but you see loves that would never win on this state local or national level ever again they should be thinking. you're watching r t international still ahead holiday from hell we hear from a passenger who was trapped on an italian cruise ship during

a deadly covert outbreak more on that among our stories after the break. why the 21st century america is exhausted it's just tired and it doesn't have anything approach that in march but china. after being on the margins for so long does have something to prove and they do have the capacity and they are putting shoulder to the whale and they are working to.

welcome back to the program french authorities are investigating manslaughter allegations against kosta cruises after 3 people died following a covert outbreak on one of their ships last year those aboard the coast maggie claim they weren't told about suspected infections and were encouraged by the crew to use the ship's facilities artie's charlotte dubinsky spoke to one of those passengers. sequoias yes the cruise was

a chance to go with my son who was 5 years old to see a magical world and discover the magic of the caribbean instead it was a nightmare i wondered how i would get out of this hell because if i didn't i was going to die stephanie dubois was one of thousands of holiday makers aboard the cost a magical last year when the covert pandemic hit for her and her then 5 year old son it was supposed to be a dream voyage instead passengers found themselves trapped or bored with little information or what was happening as the virus spread through the ship. if they refused to inform us that there were cases of covert aboard the ship that they had tested positive there was no suspicion but indeed there were ill people they refused to give us information and we got it from the media when we were near the coast and could get a signal they concealed it from us and they didn't let us protect ourselves they didn't protect us either health wise they didn't treat us very well and not at all

humanely but also the void had to put in place barrier measures which could have protected us and did you ask koester what measures they were putting in place to ensure that your health was the priority. the tension increased very quickly we were in a state of tension and anguish which i just can't describe finally after a few days this virus spread strongly we asked them to cut the air conditioning and they refused we demanded that they open all the restaurants and all those outside so that people could escape the cruise as soon as possible to avoid gatherings he refused to put in place all these measures the cruise ship was refused permission for passengers to disembark at several ports including only island of lotsa nique now these images show this situation off to the islands authority told passengers that they had to stay confined to the cabins tensions were high and violence erupted. i was was

was. was was. was was was a year later and french investigators approving allegations including mom saw to aggravated to seat and in danger in the lives of others against italy's costa cruises over her mental could be going team cases aboard that ship 3 passengers from the virus the company denies the accusations saying that it and the crew acted on the scant information that was available about the forests the toyman considering that at that time the situation was evolving rapidly and the ships medical team acted on the basis of the vailable scientific information and full compliance with the instructions of the health authorities and in constant coordination with them but the lawyer who represents always knowing 100 passengers

in the complaint filed in france told r.t. that that's not the case and yet there was no more hand sanitizer it was replaced by water very clearly or it was either totally empty or didn't exist no security or health measures there were 3 restaurants on board the shuttle 2 there was only one open and there were 2300 passengers who came for lunch breakfast and dinner one after the other without health measures and he claims that the company was fully aware before setting sail that there were troubled waters ahead even loyal to holiday makers he said that they had questioned whether there would be a tally in passengers on board as at that time italy had become the latest hub for the virus costing he says assured them there would be no italians on board he said me they knew a week in advance that the cruise could not last so yes it's true it was a strain. situation near the start or just

a little in advance of the pandemic hence the concern of the french passengers to know if there were any italian passengers at this time it was a european country hit hard by covert and they wrote we have the emails and letters from costa which say no there will be no italian passengers yes they lied and they should have cancelled this cruise because they knew what could happen the passengers who have brought these complaints now have to wait to see if it will be taken for stephanie it's already been a long and tough journey but she's determined that costa cruises should be held responsible so it's even ski. legal. that mark has stripped almost 100 syrian refugees of their residency permit saying they should return home now that major parts of the country are considered safe is the 1st european nation to make such a move we have made it clear to the syrian refugees that their residence but on the

distemper it can be withdrawn that protection is no longer needed the government says the 94 migrants will be sent to danish deportation camps but won't be forced to leave from there in the hope that they'll want to go back to syria of their own accord the move is part of the ruling party's aim to have 0 asylum seekers applying for residency human rights groups have lashed out at the move saying it goes against people's rights to be protected from persecution and we got the thoughts on this from bachmann member of the alternative for germany party and there's. no perspective in denmark. in my decide to go big to sue really our. son judy i think it is. so the point to distinguish different groups no dual syrians who fled from the sun to injury they probably don't want to go back to the audience who fled from the suze and flood damage be an option and that might

be also an option for dogs who would simply fled from the school of war because they were afraid of to live because. this. war has angered now and. might be safe enough for them to go back you have to do you have to government which is still in charge in syria even if. you have related human rights lifted want to send syrians back there you have to do you move to syrian government because of our disagreement of the syrian government. pursued his policy . i mean his opposition is keeping up the pressure attempting to force the country's prime minister to step down saturday was the 10th consecutive day of protests in the capital of your of on and it follows a public faceoff between prime minister nicol pasha yon and the military artie's

constantine roscoff was among the crowds. well the people of europe on have taken to the streets again to protest against the prime minister he called question on and they see that peace deal that he signed with his service john as a humiliating defeat have the opposition have been staging rallies like this one for over a week now demanding the incumbent prime minister to step down was another rally staged by the veterans in front of the army is the ministry of deep bands and better ones there i joined calls from the top military command for the missing nation of nicole pasha now. we're here to support our friends our top army leaders who are now literally face and unconstitutional repression so we just want to mention that officers are shoulder to shoulder with their commanders no matter their own active duty or veterans you know polish the. coals for the resignation of the prime minister and moreover i consider that. the army is not

a joke we are talking about the chief of staff of this country who is empowered with suits in rights and responsibilities and becomes simply be removed all of a sudden just because someone woke up in a bad mood like what happened to his deputy now all stems from the last year or so to 6 week bloody war with his service john which ended in a humiliating defeat as a lot of people here say and armenia had to cede large swaths of its territory to his areas and of course that's when he called much not based on increasing calls for his resignation at all at all it's quite can see 2 ways it is unclear how other countries go he didn't overcome this even in the 9 you know we political turmoil. this was a shock the news hour with some with some brief news britain's most prominent breaks a tear nigel for ross has announced he's quitting politics again he famously quit after the bracks it referendum saying he wanted his life back but now he insists he

means it as he's confident now that there is no way it will be reversed isn't going away though and it will like and he will likely continue to influence politics in the u.k. as he plans to focus on his media career. and here you can see huge piles of radioactive waste sealed in special bags collected in fukushima the cleanup operation is still underway ahead of the 10th anniversary of the nuclear accident which led to nearly $16000.00 deaths the waste will be kept there till 2045 when it will be relocated to a permanent facility outside the fukushima prefecture. in the french city of nonce hundreds of revelers took part in an anti lock down techno parade they want to see bars clubs and music venues reopen the event featured live d.j. performance. more details on your world news stories make sure to check out

our website r.t. dot com and follow us on twitter i'll be back with more news in just about 30 minutes hope to see you then. during the vietnam war u.s. forces to neighboring laos it was a secret war. and for years the american people did not know. how much that is the case and the most heavily bombed country per capita. human history millions of unexploded bombs still in danger lives in this small agricultural country 200 i don't we don't think going to continue to happen again even today kids in los full

victims of bombs dropped decades ago is the u.s. making amends for the tragedy in laos won't help to the people need in the too little and don't mind. max kaiser this is the kaiser report so much to get you world is just going crazy good re a stacy depends on who you ask here is ahead by in that kind of defines the perhaps china's century upon us china gave us diplomats covert tests what wait what why don't read the whole have line read it china gave us diplomats anal cope.