in the headlines this hour the czech president says his country needs to start using russia's covert vaccine i'm told for the health minister to be fired for refusing to approve the drug. the european medicines agency which is countries to keep using the astra zeneca vaccine after 4 nations suspend the drug over reports of severe blood clots. britain shuts for brand new covert emergency hospitals built at the cost of half a $1000000000.00 pounds of public anger boils over a male one percent pay rise for frontline health workers. based around 3 weeks. to many sites across. all that's not. a market.

yet another protest in new york against the governor with more calls for him to resign the pressure is already building against over his handling of the pandemic we hear from the daughter of one cat victim whose demanding answers. are good to have you with us where if you choose again this is the international brain leads the stories were across in the moscow newsroom this hour the presidents of the czech republic has called on his government to urgently approve the russian made sputnik the vaccine to ease the ongoing health crisis and it spiraled into a major dispute within the leadership in prague with president calling for the health minister to be fired for dragging his feet on the issue here's our europe correspondent peter all of us. well the president of the czech republic deeply

unhappy with senior figures in the government of that nation. called for both the health ministry and the minister for health to step up to the plate in approve the sputnik vaccine ahead of the european medicines agency giving the green light a similar move was done in countries like hungary that independently approved the vaccine for use without. approval it was still waiting for the difference in the czech republic is those that the president is now calling for senior figures in the cabinet to be sacked i would like to say that the 2 biggest obstacles to delivering sputnik be to the czech republic and the minister of health and also the director of the state institute for drug control if millions of people abroad are already being vaccinated with these jabs where that russian or chinese than the 2 i spoke of are to blame for the fact that our people will continue to die unnecessarily the only solution i see is the retirement of both well he certainly came but young

blood need the health minister in prague has said he will wait for the e.m.a.'s approval before allowing sputnik v. to be used in check as long as i'm the health minister i will insist that vaccination in the czech republic is not done with the drug there's not been approved by the european medicines agency but if it was to change his mind there are plenty within the government who would be very keen to see the russian vaccine rolled out across the country i would not seek to devalue the results of russian science just because it comes from russia we have a situation where there are not enough vaccine supplies in europe so the e.u. should have negotiated with other manufacturers including manufacturers from russia a long time ago. well elsewhere with one of the major vaccines that's being used here in europe the astra zeneca italy and denmark could become the latest e.u. member states to suspend its use they are joined by dawn e.u.

member states in europe norway and iceland in carrying out this suspension in denmark it follows the death of one person with a blood clot having just received the vaccine the health minister in the country said it's not currently possible to conclude if there is a link he made that announcement as he also announced that there would be a full investigation earlier we saw similar scenes from austria just under a week ago or so the european medicines agency ruled what happened in that country had no link to the astra zeneca vaccine being given so these moves are precautionary in nature but certainly serious and worthwhile being looked at and that's why these member states of the e.u. as well as other european nations of of decided to take that decision to suspend the use of astra zeneca for now well as peter mentioned

a number of countries have suspended the use of the astra zeneca vaccine over reports of blood clots and one death in denmark well now the european medicines agency which is heading the investigation says those countries should continue using the job the position of european medicines agency safety committee p.r.a. see is that the vaccines benefits continue to add to a it's risks and the vaccine can continue to be administered while investigation of cases of flu on bone bullock events is ongoing to scientists we spoke to outline the potential implications of the jap being suspended. i think when you're vaccinating very large numbers of people you've got to recognize that in the general population there are going to be a fix anyway of people suffering diseases all the time and you need to be sure that what any of beds that you see any effects that you see of the vaccine are not simply because your bucks 100 large group of individuals who have other health conditions and so you have to look at it very very carefully and that's why you

need to take a bit of a breather and investigate the possibility that the vaccine is it associated with these effects as far as i i can tell some of the the e.m.a.'s already looked at this in relation to austria and as for no it's no specific links with the vaccine because i've done that study comparing blood clots and other and other effects in the general health of healthy populations and i say the normal population versus the banks and the population so you have to look at the scenes very very carefully is a been a big issue hasn't there about confidence in vaccines generally and there's been there's been the big issue with the in europe about the fact of age on the effectiveness of vaccines. and of course as a you have to investigate every serious side effect and fully but there is a big commercial dimension to all of this as well we need to look at it for the number of people who are in your port said that batch of fact see they've gone to the price of probably many different countries is there

a problem with. globetrotting in other countries as well or is this just a one off for example in denmark that's a really important thing to to find out and really anybody with that sort of oversight multinational oversight like the air may can do that the european model of medicines agency has to take the sort of questions and concerns of each member state into account when it when it came to gives off dorothy i don't think that one can say the m.m.a. is being. you know that. there are questions that there are still be slightly different from regulators in the u.k. or in other countries so overall 'd one gets quite a broad picture of. the safety of this drug. in many different countries. italy said to become the 1st e.u. state to make russia's sputnik the vaccine production is due to start in july the

european medicines agency is considering right now whether to approve the shot of its developers are demanding an apology after the agency's chair described the authorization process as russian roulette nevertheless italy expects to manufacture $10000000.00 doses by the end of the year as the block suffers huge shortages from western alternatives the president of the italian russian chamber of commerce told us that the deal is about people not politics. and as for public opinion leaving aside political views everyone is very much looking forward to the vaccine people are waiting for those is not for statements those great numbers were coming from pfizer and astra zeneca according to the promises all italians were to be vaccinated by june but unfortunately we can see that it won't be the case therefore there are great hopes of the i wouldn't say the reason it's widely anticipated is because it's a russian vaccine people want to get any vaccine or certainly one with a reasonable price and these religious sticks and sputnik the meets those

expectations i believe that's been in the perfectly fits into the logic of the made with russia label let me give you a specific example the russian direct diverse meant fund was looking for european pharmaceutical company incorporation with which you could produce a vaccine in europe as the russian italian chamber of commerce we couldn't sit idle we examined all the information concerning the vaccine i personally was one of the 1st foreigners inoculated with we understand there is no life for development without a vaccine and geopolitics shouldn't be a priority all the focus should be put on people's health and business but the job innovation isn't the only russian anti covert breakthrough the russian institute of immunology is right now testing a drug that could stop infected people from spreading the disease the head of the institute's been talking to us about the trials. the clinical trials of mere 19 kicked off at the beginning of this year at the moment the 1st phase concerning its safety is coming to

a close and we expect it to be completed by the middle of march and then as part of the 2nd phase we will proceed to the examination of its efficacy on patients the medicine is designed to stop a virus from replicating itself it's clear already that this drug will be administered in an inhaled form as for the period of effectiveness it's hard to say right now certainly the earlier an infected person takes the medicine the better it will work however given its immediate focus on blocking the replication of the virus we believe it can be effective at any stage of illness anyway let's wait until we get the results of the 2nd face. more emergency innovation and italy has launched the world's 1st covert hospital trade as it struggles with overflowing wards. this is a medical training that has been equipped to transport and treat critically ill patients and dose intensive care costs everybody is organized in the intensive

care unit and obviously this simply equipment the label to do the job 7 patients can be transported in each carries so in total $21.00 patients in intensive care. cases in italy have again been on the rise this month forcing the authorities to put more regions into the so-called red zone with the tightest restrictions the health minister says the train will head to wherever it's needed most. hospital train was made available to reinforce the to retreat where there is a difficulty it's approximately service the national health service that goes where there is a problem. next money down the drain that's how the u.k.'s huge temporary covert hospitals are being described after it was revealed that most are now being closed down having treated only a small handful of patients it's led to questions over the government's approach to the pandemic as kate partridge now reports. 4 of england's nightingale hospitals

are being closed down they've been built at a cost of 500000000 pounds to preempt a surge in the pandemic but the east london venue treated only 54 patients in the 1st wave while others so not all n.h.s. officials say they served as the nation's safety net since the very early days of the been there make the nightingale hospitals have been on hand as the ultimate insurance policy in case existing hospital capacity was overwhelmed but many permanent hospitals were already short staffed and unable to release frontline workers to the nightingales the government felt the need to show some. centerpiece that they could share what they look how rapidly we have created one thing it was rules and. china managed to create. even even more so i mean there's an element of basically showing of those who are trying to reassure that they were doing things and when when the government starts to do

things like that is injury you are going to get the waste of money because no one asked the question well do we need to really do we need to as it turned out. it also turned out we start them because the main issue was basically stopping not the actual number of plates that were available so the whole thing was just. to go far as i can see why that new year medics in covert hotspots were days away from having to choose who should be treated and who wouldn't as record coronavirus admissions forced ambulances to wait outside a n.d. and amid the surge n.h.s. workers had to resort to wearing bin bags due to a lack of personal protective equipment some doctors even received p.p.a. which had gone beyond its expiry date over 2 years the u.k. government has also set aside. cashpoints much criticized coded 19 track and trace

system 37 1000000000 pounds of taxpayers' money prompting a scathing report from a westminster spending watchdog despite the unimaginable resources throwing at this project testing trace cannot point to a measurable difference to the progress of the pandemic british tech space cannot be treated by the government like an a.t.m. machine we need to see a clear plan in costs better controlled in his budget chancellery she soon x. said the government had spent over 280000000000 pounds during the pandemic over 700000 jobs have been lost and the economy has suffered its biggest drop in 300 years but tough questions are now being asked about how chunks of that 280000000000 pounds have been spent and the impact that they've had i think the collaboration are very cool reply i mean it's very cool our execution we're planning our numbers. of course are printed money and being spurts all

the. non-secure all the hospitals most of which were not properly was being a complete waste of resources. the government's a big chris was not looking at how that's the issue of the stall for small states because there's no. extra hospital facilities if you don't get the staff to go in. the hospital closures come of the same time that the government said that it can't afford more than a one percent pay rise for n.h.s. workers nurses have launched a petition calling for a 15 percent salary hike which so far say more than half a 1000000 people signed up one nurse explain to us what a one percent pay rise really means. to be honest one percent is quite frankly an insult to the profession and to the n.h.s. it's a whole the most noses that equates to around 3 ounces your weak and and in many hostile sites across the it costs more than that to pocket cost to to to go to

a compact a crop and we're acutely aware of its financial strain that's the brits on the u.k. by the pound amec at i'm not saying that we deserve any more than anyone else we're just saying that we are also deserving of save face what we do at the public sector workers it seems and sadly well deserved raises recently and we've been left out of that again as an n.h.s. and i think when we talk about money and what's affordable we've just seen 67000000000 on it and it's actually tracking systems that we pay for an n.h.s. to how shifty percent pay rise and it would still be money left in the pot after we see nearly qualified mrs madden's student nurses already thinking gosh you know if i come into the right korea here we have a little $100000.00 nurses vacancies in the way i'm not really causes patient safety issues across all that what we really need is to fill those vacancies and to have a committed and enthusiastic and educated group and we're not going to treat these

are unnecessary paying our staff a great. deal about take up ahead we hear from 2 lawmakers from the alternative for germany posse which is having to gain ground in the upcoming elections that that and more after this. so ironic that all the people that are in the big point bubble talk about the other bubbles that the fed is inflated without recognizing that they're in a bubble themselves i mean it's like a bubble is generally in the eye of the beholder nobody can tell their own bubble and so you've got all these people who are involved in the crypto bob or they can see it. is you know media a reflection of reality. in

a world transformed. what will make you feel safe from. the isolation pool community. are you going the right way or are you being that. direct. what is true what is faith. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. or remain in the shallows. and out again more of a headline news now in pressure is continuing to mount against new york's under fire governor andrew cuomo on several fronts a protest of homelessness and drug overdoses so police move in and make

a number of arrests. the protesters have been chanting the governor had failed new yorkers and this latest demonstration comes amid a wave of anger over sexual assault allegations against and also his handling of the covert health crisis the governor's been strongly condemned for undercounting the number of deaths in. most sense of method that he made a mistake in withholding the data. when we didn't provide information. it will. press people cynics politicians. to fill the void i just want to make sure people know these are the facts these are the facts. everything that could have been done was done the state's health

department had reported around 8000 fatalities in care homes but that number excluded those who were transferred to hospitals where they then died it was later acknowledged had in fact been 15000 deaths in total how many people lost loved ones in the pandemic. father died last year in new york she's been demanding answers about those policies which saw nursing homes take in covert positive patients. my father was in a nursing home station he was in the nursing home for 23. when he we were there were at least in theory ended my family he 'd could no longer stand the governor cuomo issued his march 25th mandate for seeing nursing homes. has that of patients or any peace and with that being able to test. the nursing home.

system ways not prepared for any kind of health care emergency they didn't have the proper heat be they didn't have the proper the proper ability to separate the sick from the. vulnerable governor responsible and commissioner health. they are both very smart men and from that day one governor cuomo has said that the most vulnerable were those that were the elderly and that. coronavirus in a nursing home would be a feeding frenzy on the elderly and i know my father still encountered it right there governors attitude of who cares where they die it does matter because it points to one where where they're you know errors in their policies into why are they afraid of having those numbers revealed.

back to europe and germany is gearing up for the start of a so-called super election year which kicks off with regional votes in 2 states this weekend and culminates with the general election this coming september with chancellor merkel said to leave office towards the end of the year sunday's elections will give a 1st taste of the country's appetite for political change. show you spoke with 2 german i paste from one of the country's main opposition policies alternative for germany touching on several topics from domestic politics to cope with vaccinations . but how would you comment on the recent attempts by germany's domestic intelligence agency to put your party the a.f.d. under surveillance a secret service. it's the duty to learn to several times in the past and know they destroyed the republican party and the ninety's and later also did and. also with the same methods i've d. has in its rings neither less nor more extremists compared to society average

because our party also is some kind of image of society or on the average this is a league asian sort of the same purpose to eliminate political opposition in drew near or at least to oppress it for the benefit of our political system do sanctions work do they help or do they hinder professional partnerships do you think sanctions is not the right approach because if you want to have good relations with russia that are meant to be productive we shall have open conversation. being myself a person from the west i must ask the question sanctions always punish somebody for for his behavior is the west innocent himself that's a question all the west is not in a sense himself and then why does the west dare to punish russia withing tunes as if the west were a morally hiring institution and. video agency ruptly they were notified by commerzbank that their bank accounts would be closed by the end of the spring now

russia's foreign ministry has slammed the move as politically motivated how would you view that not to do it and is having the same who has happened to all of my colleagues all m.p.'s off of all parliamentary group of alternative for germany party since 2018 all our private bank accounts that we held by the increment spend or impost bank were closed so and this was for obviously political. what to eat it so what is it all happening with your subsidy recovery happened with us in germany being m.p.'s in your opinion what why is it taking so long for the e.u. or thora to rule on whether sputnik very russia's vaccine can be used to me it's politics playing a part in this do you think so the process is being hampered by why i saw the result of my personal analysis is that western companies manufacturers like pfizer

like more dare not like us for their makeup they make huge a huge amount of money by bricks in 18 european certain cells and imagine there were some kind of competition in the do you market of we have a free market it should be a free market should be a free competition of all the vaccines and the people should be informed of both of those folks scenes i'm afraid that it will take some time because this is again a political issue and also the issue of money and. invest on a farm are a lot b. is strong the will push it and they will try to prolong the whole procedure. of word normal is being dropped from all skin care products made by the consumer goods giant unilever u.k. based firm claims the word makes customers feel excluded we know that removing

normal from our products and packaging will not fix the problem alone in but it's an important step forward the company polled customers and found that more than 2 in 3 people thought that using the word normal had a negative impact unilever also says it's ending the excessive air brushing of photos of models in its advertising but there's been a backlash against the move. so sick of woke n'est taken to p.c. extremes normal means not only and not dry do we have to turn every term on the planet into enclose it itty i've never been able to use normal shampoo but at least i know that it isn't suitable for my dry and hair thank god i have always felt marginalized with my dry scalp every time in the shampoo aisle i would have to seek out a safe space because of the pain and anguish caused by seeing the word normal and my inability to ever have normal hair unit leverage just saved my life as on the 1st time unilever's courted controversy last year it failed to track over its

marketing of a skin whitening products in asia we put the issue about dropping the word normal of the debate. there's no way ordinary people think this in those kinds of numbers when it comes to the word normal the other thing about using models and changing the shots oh i agree with but the normal thing this is purely them overreacting to the trouble they landed themselves in i think it's important that they are talking about this and they are going to do this because. it's needed we need to keep pushing change in the industry i mean you know body land and we have probably one of the most inclusive agencies and i don't think enough times are doing enough to how that i can haynes inclusive and stay away from normal this is marketed this is a bit like we're going to change tomato sauce so it's going to be green we're going to turn salad cream into

a different color we're going to stop making solid cream this is just a pathetic attempt to grab more market share and also so i can i disagree i don't think that's that's and i think that a therapy even though you wouldn't know what all is not doesn't i disagree so i die i have to agree and then i mean we we've recently hired a model who went through an accident he has to be scarring she has you know think. she is doing very well now a fee is going to be shocking to say this is imposed and this is what we should be seeing and i think removing normal is important for a lot of people have asked so i had great. there's the idea of normal i would agree with you that if somebody has got a disability or whatever could do not understand what they call the motos or take on board completely what is the word normal when it comes to things like shampoo so a normal hair well is are the normal greasy or dry or cracked or damaged and i

think doing what they're doing what they're talking about removing almost stopping editing and editing especially on social media this is you know there is a definite trend against that. and i think what they are doing is a step in the right direction it is not the be all and end all but it is moving forward so i think it's an indication i don't think that necessarily to get to ground crisis i think it's needed doing this purely to get market share and they're doing it purely because of their offensive products that they had before 10000 people i'd love to see the steps of let's see the demographic of the 10000 people that they asked him whether they confuse the question ability or being confused or not my friend where you think it's about normal imagery would your grandmother would normal i don't object to any of the rest of it but the word normal it's work nonsense it's all done for marketing and you shouldn't be falling for it because they're making a mug of you and that's the way it looks from moscow this hour thanks very much for

watching i'm calling bright your next update is with thomas in half an hour here on r.t. and. when i was so wrong. why don't we all just don't call. me. yet to seep out just the attic. and in detroit because betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground.