greece foreign minister becomes the 1st european official to receive the vaccine along with point 4000000 of his compound you to see will be joining us on the program shortly. downs' linger over whether the vaccine causes blood clots as u.k. doctors say some patients are canceling importance for the job despite the european medicines agency giving people clear. the u.s. russia relations hit a new low after president joe biden brands his russian counterpart a killer. good

morning to you thanks for joining us here for the weekly international. scandinavian countries are extending a freeze on the use of the. vaccine that's despite the european medicines agency concluding on thursday the drug was quote safe and effective development. several scandinavian countries still unsure about losing this vaccine but start with finland which has now suspended the use of the astra zeneca jab why they think best against shoe cases of potential blood clots on top of that we know the norway denmark and sweden they're all holding back from restarting their programs all of them still have concerns about issues surrounding astra zeneca and say that they going to carry out their own investigations now due to several serious cases and no way would want to thoroughly review the situation before make

a conclusion while blood clots eye is the issue that's been discussed over and over nots initially will think e.m. a was investigating over the last week o. cing but there have been of the much more serious effects that some say to astra zeneca let's have a look now at some of those cases. now the a.m.a. of course did carry out extensive investigations into these possible side effects

and what they said at their press conference on thursday is that the vaccines benefit in protecting people from coronavirus related deaths or hospitalisations continued to outweigh the possible links as a result of taking the astra zeneca vaccine and that's why. they reapproved to rubber stamp it once again for use but it's not just countries nordic countries who are still querying the use of astra zeneca here in france the country's health authority has now given new advice about the job saying that can only be used for those over the age of 55 now you might wonder why that seems so odd but if i go back to just a couple weeks ago being told by authorities here in france that astra zeneca shouldn't be used with those in older age groups so it does feel for many is if the

new advice is a complete u. turn and it is leaving many people questioning why well the reason is because the may also on thursday suggested that they were a possible increased risk of blood clots for those under the age of 55 if they had the astra zeneca job. i don't trust the spanx an adult i don't know that it's really true what they say with the media would no longer know what to think that. vaccine is brand new i mean we don't know the side effects. those who died but i don't want to dig that sawing waits in the little longer. you never know how they made it so there is an indictment on top of that the people who died because of it so i don't really know if it really works or not but there's also now the question as to what this means for the year may itself we now have countries across the european union deciding that it's rubber stamping of us just isn't quite good

enough let's not forget that the e.u. may is the scientific body for the whole of the european union this is the party that looks at medicines and decides if it's to approve them so the idea that countries and now questioning want to double check the figures the investigations over this issue the vaccines. really does raise that question of trust and other toys when we're now being told there are not enough vaccines to prevent a 3rd could be 1000 wave here in europe and many people may now be saying you know actually i don't want the boxing i would prefer to have but what they really are big issues that need to be resolved. several leaders are urging the block's medical agency to fast trunks very vaccine approval as europe faces a 3rd wave of chrono virus put me concerning v.

and other vaccines i strongly insist that the relevant issue not authorize asian safe vaccines as soon as possible at least of the vaccines that we have the better off it's of interest for us in also slim stuff i'm along as far as the russian vaccine is concerned i have held the view for some time that we should use each vaccine that is approved by the european magistrate's arjun singh but if a new such european order were made and i have seen no indication that it will be germany would have to go it alone that is the most ability and this what we would do. companies across europe though they might break ranks with the european regulator earlier this month firms in a number of you can trees deals to produce russia. but they're all still waiting on the blocks regulated to approve the drugs been these already been authorized by 46 nations europe's slovakia and hungry are already rolling out jap. hungary's foreign minister peter c.

anto was among the 1st european officials to receive the russian sputnik the vaccine he's also just announced that his country is expected to receive an additional $680000.00 doses of the russian over the next 2 weeks and he was the 1st to you nation to approve the more than 1400000 who go into have since received a 1st dose of the vaccine. dungarees foreign minister peter c.r. joins me live on the program now very good to have you on peter last time we spoke you were actually just recovering from having been ill with covert 19 glad to see you've recovered and you've decided obviously to have the vaccination for extra security please tell me why did you choose the sputnik v. option here because of course there were many alternatives out there. good morning to all of you you know i'm not a doctor i'm not a white all just i'm just a an economist of the linger into politics so i rather leave all these issues to

the professionals and hungry and professionals the hungary a national regulator has approved the emergency use authorization for nukes so i had no concern to be honest for me the only important thing was that i should take a vaccine then we each is approved by the national regulator and since this has been the case i had i had no worries i was the one that asked by our government to negotiate with the russians on the ration of purchasing. i have started to negotiations with minister month to roland mused back at the end of october before i got neal actually and after a long series of negotiations and we were able to sign our contract which. a lot in accelerating the vaccination in hungary you said it's rightly more than

1400000 now today this morning even more more than 1500000 on the areas have already been vaccinated and these will not have been fussin both if he had the not decided to buy vaccine from also east you know vaccine is not a question of ideology for us is a matter of saving lives and if we had not contracted the chinese and russian the vaccine we could have saved the health care added health and the lives of many hungry aryans around 700000 on the aryans have received just our shot of a of an easterner vaccine so it's easy to do calculate you know what a position would be if you had another chinese and russian maxi. in the country and how was your vaccination experience to get any side effects. no actually i haven't found anything during neither during the x. anation nor afterwards i have received

a 3rd child and evening of. friday so why i can tell you that so far so i haven't you had to call dentist mr month to report to him that i took it and he had the great news that arnie i have made the necessary calculations based on which. exactly today be you receive another 250001st shots the next week 880000 sort of 2nd shots and be received 250000 during the next week so actually our cards read the results of takeoff from. flight to moscow and made the next shipment when split it was was 1st them failed it seemed to be the 1st vaccine that was put out there into the public consciousness a lot of skepticism it seemed in the west all the claims that well this is too good to be true it's come out too fast it's not been tested enough that as much as we would like to think attitudes are changing now. well as i told you we have

never made a question of ideology out of the sure on the vaccine asking the huge mistake which was committed in the us the other parts of europe was that there was a question of ideology may. be of the vaccine now there are more and more more and more of us are in your own leader speaking openly about the necessity to and. approved vaccines you know there are 2 ways you know europe according to the european regulations how a vaccine can get approval one days that cannot lead through the e.m.e.a. european medicines agency through a let's see ordinary procedure but you don't get the regulations also say that there is another way in gates of emergency and these other they should be completed . the national regulators would use all the emergency even. so the fact that you hungary a national regulator has issue of emergency use or for after

a zation is nothing you know against their regulations and and that's what made us a little bit fed up you know that then the way hungary has approved. was considered in the western part of europe and in global media as if we had made something against the european regulations which is which is not true you wrote your regulations say very clearly that in a case of emergency you can make such a move and you know in november in the member when i started negotiations we my russian and chinese counterparts it was so obvious that this situation would be exactly similar to the spring of last year when there is a problem that for which the global demand is much much much higher than the global production capacity last spring it was the masks it was the project the small ones on ventilators now it is the accident there is a much bigger demand compared to be. passive and that's why we have started down negotiations already those who have made those who have made

a question i'd also ideology out on this issue and it's not they are they are in a most more complicated situation i guess now we are. into as a as a brit you know i sometimes look at the media back home in the u.k. and i always find it very strange even at the moment just how almost nothing is said about the even the existence of the sputnik the vaccine it's all talk about astra zeneca another alternative do you think that geopolitics is playing a role in a lot of politicians or said it shouldn't but is it playing a role. now of course i think it's really obvious because when he came out you know even it became public that we would be negotiating about buying against you know farms. huge political at back was put on us but no one asks no one are so what's your experience what's your professional staff such because you're not a fact is that our national regulator has sent a delegation

a delegation of experts not politicians no geishas of experts to russia they ran to the site there and the a vaccine is being produced or even more sites where the vaccine is being produced then they had that discussion to be the regulator of russia the producer itself they have studied through the documentation farmers and thousands of pages and after beast pharo procedure day have made the decision so these are professional these are not politicians and no one no one who has attacked us has asked whether so what would you or our professionals say is it really is usually a fact for you basically safe no the attack was put on us just simply because we have to be used instead of want to looking to the west i'm super curing laxness but you know we are we are actually used to that you know what i'm going to do here i'm going to use immediately at that and then

a couple months or years after everybody follows of course no one gives a credit for us to be good for us but this is this is not how politics works on an obvious well you may be trendsetters this report in germany in italy are now considering doing the same easing this but if a vaccine what why do you think the change of heart. look i think it's very simple where a simple the number of newly infected persons in entire europe has been growing exponentially and if you are of a go to accelerate your nation process then you wean danger of the lives and the house of your citizens and the condition of your economy in our case i can tell you the following there are around 900000 people getting infected normal daily basis now the number of casualties is above 200 on a daily basis economy suffers a loss of more than 30000000 euros on a daily basis because of the restrictions so it's very easy to calculate if you are able to increase the number of vaccines in your country and if you are able to

accelerate the vaccination procedure you can wean big you're going to save the lives of the people you can save the half of the people and you can come closer to what we call reopening of the country and restarting the economy so it's obvious that the more vaccines you do have the more people you can save and you can lower your plan so i think this is a very clear reason why now western european countries understand that if they are not able to and or any other type of vaccine to their portfolio they will be in a very very complicated and challenging situation you explained it well there how important it is countries are recognizing now that they need to get good vaccines and to get them quickly to save lives that said why do you think the opium medicine is a disease taking so long to approve disciplining the vaccine for use in the. i wish i could tell you i can tell you one thing for sure the decentralized procurement

procedure managed by brust was has failed and spared because regardless of the promises and the expectations there are much less vaccines arriving and market share slower compared to. before so i can tell you now we are about 1.5 just just to understand that through our example there is one point there are on point 5000000 people with already received at least the 1st shot of the vaccine in hungary out of this out of these people around 700000 has received. russian or chinese so you can calculate easily what would have happened if you had not contracted these one so i can't give you an explanation why e.m.e.a. is slow of course of course i mean bureaucratic explanations can be even any time

they can say that well they spent more documentation and they expect the russian counterpart to do the standard but i don't know what i see is what i see is that there are vaccines in the world which are used by millions and millions of people beat russian or chinese but there are these are not authorized here in iraq you know once again you know fracking explanations can be easily given and fine but not this is not one of the roughest uses of the lives of the people the more vaccine you have and the more people you're going to say but i think very simple at least to speak about that for sure i would have thought the whole point of being in a block like the european union is that we personally like the strength in numbers also you'd think there would be coordinated efforts when when a big issue comes along like this doesn't appear to been the case if anything things as seem to be fragmenting now it's countries going their own way in terms of self preservation how do you assess the vaccination campaign. you know what i'm tell you is the following at the end of last year just before

christmas just before christmas it was sad that we should make a common european day as the start of the vaccination campaign on the 26th or when you start home over the summer we should vaccinate before them and then i you know is small already has appeared on the austrian hungary and border as far as i remember on the 26th of december and they you know we were looking around to be ok but here is the real one i mean this is it on this day and this is it so so according to the expectations would who are the warrants the the poor in asia let's say after a few women procedural brussels and the reality itself what it's good for us are very very far away each other and you know it and in this regard i would say a beggar in case they had to not thanked us for looking for different

directions you know that there was doubled and most frustrating that while it became obvious that these shipments. managed and coordinating by brussels are not satisfactory we've arrived there at that by the same people by the same crowds by the same politicians why we want to buy additional vaccines for our own people for our own people and i think this is a this is a matter of of obligation of a state of the government to protect the lives of its own people and if you see that someone else was supposed to help us in new cigar is not able to be a leader on time and regarding the new order want to have done we look for 4 other issues i can tell you that during last spring when it was about the repatriation of our of our citizens when it was a vote buying mosques wango went the lakers there to buy the cooperation. much better compared to we had we were only kind of the ordination. in this regard

saw leadership is in you know extraordinary situations and and i think you'd be going very obvious reasons and peter finally just a word on the furor would say over the astra zeneca vaccine a lot of countries making their own minds up now about whether they think it's safe or not and the mace come out and said well you know the benefits outweigh the risk it's hardly a ringing endorsement though is it what do you think of this contra controversy. when i say. let's leave the issue of vaccines to be professionals apply a double standards and i mean it's for. actions when it comes to western. and eastern produced by accident so what if our regulator says that's use ok then i expect that others not to challenge it so when b.m.a. says regardless of the way they do it go the doctors are no why should i challenge

it they are the professionals as i said as i started i'm just an economist would be as would point the. gun or anything god meant was you know i don't know anything about why ron let's leave it to be professional ask you c.m.a. says it's a great. challenge but then on the other way round you foreign national regulator so that we need to resolve gets you know courtney's ok no one should challenge it or. peter really appreciate it frank opinion thanks for coming on r.t. p.c.r. to my guest hungary's foreign minister thank you. and other news on tuesday joe biden gave an interview in which he was asked whether russia's president was a killer he answered yes vowing that polygamy putin would pay the price for alleged interference in u.s. elections responded by calling its u.s. envoy back to moscow for crisis talks on the state of relations with washington the more the story has artie's down hawkins. the lowest point since the cold war that

sol russia u.s. relations have been described across the board over the last few years but every new u.s. administration has a chance to take a fresh look at things build some bridges at least try not to add to the tension and certain joe biden you know vladimir putin you think is a killer. i do so what price must he pay but pray she's going to pay well you'll see shortly if there was a book on the presidential diplomacy one o one the very 1st page may well say don't call your counterpart a soulless murderer in your 1st couple of months in office that could make talks over the next 4 years slightly awkward for the kremlin saying they're now hoping for the best but preparing for the worst in terms of relations but international diplomacy can be like a game of poker biden went all chips in no regrets the present by regret calling. you. know the president gave a direct answer to a direct question that's aside from threats through pay

a price and i'll sing new sanctions hailed as a new approach to dealing with moscow the president's relationship and this administration is relationship with the russians will be very different from what we've seen over the last 3 years and we've already seen evidence of that the boy administration took around 2 months to allow this new sanctions targeting russia what old front took around the same time when he came to office back in 2017 to announce his 1st sanctions against russian companies in connection with iran north korea syria nonproliferation act the 1st of many so hardly a new approach there anyway the target of biden's killer comments took them surprisingly well sidestepping the attacks with restrained response. because only i would wish him good health i'm not joking i mean years secondly i want to say that in the history of every country there are many tragic and dramatic events. when we judge people or rather know he is that we look into

a mirror and we see ourselves why should we impose on others what we see in ourselves when i was a child and we had arguments and of course we would say bounces off me and sticks to you and it's not just the children saying the meaning is very dino tit for tat accusations or 3 moscow and washington go back decades but with biden making it personal who made it clear he wouldn't stand for his counterpart being a moral judge. america is going to be regarding the american establishment in class its identity wasn't in it difficult circumstances that was well known the colonization of the american continent by europeans involved the extermination of the local population it was a genocide in modern terms a genocide of the indian tribes this was followed by a long but little period of slavery slave holding it was extremely cruel and all of this is endured through history and effects the development the united states to

the stone you otherwise well with the black life mass movement of conscience. could have cited any number of events u.s. global military interventions political meddling support for dubious armed groups and regimes through illustrate his wider point look at yourselves and your actions before criticizing others the white house acknowledged nobody's perfect. the president believes that one of the greatest attributes of the united states is our honest self reflection and our constant striving for progress and there's always more work to do in this round putting the shows to up the ante making a brave offer to buy and to continue the discussion in person in an uncensored live online broadcast something that may be unprecedented in such high level talks but you get a luxury to put it i want to invite president biden and bill to continue our discussion on the condition that it's in the form of live broadcast deal in light so far the white house has avoided rising to the challenge of making history refusing to

commit or comment on the offer i don't have anything to report to you in terms of a future meeting the president of course be in georgia tomorrow and quite busy the problem is said will take further silence as a no and while the card know what goes on behind the scenes of international diplomacy if biden's early days in office were a game of poker it seems this hand would go to his perceived adverse story probably not the effect he wanted to make with his initial comments. you are watching our team to national brings you right up to date 2 hours are never the same though here on r.t. so stick around our back to that day's 30 minutes. americans love.

this was a fundamental part of how our political leadership and our country at large understood the bargain you get a hope and then you know rebel right as the things you don't revolt if you have a stake in the system. be really interesting to dial it back and think about the longer deeper history housings man in the united states not just that question of the american dream but the bigger question of who the dream is and for . joining me everything on the all excitement and i'll be speaking to us of the world . i'm sure.

the welcome to worlds apart given to roughly a year since comic 19 irish the running roughshod over all aspects of our lives with its lights breaking and in fact everything we used to take for granted but is that since will lead but surely and nabl are released from lockdown the question is what is the needle post pandemic normal going to be one of the boundaries of personal social an international responsibility on the matters of how well to discuss that i'm now joined by luke professor of biochemistry at trinity college dublin professor neal it's great to talk to you thank you very much for your time

now are you happy to be here now i know that your i be vaccine if he asked you've been arguing that government should be banging down doris to get access to proven vaccines regard less of their source regardless of political considerations do you think though that the vaccination campaign the global vaccination campaign the way it has been playing out so far is really free from politics no certainly not i mean it's a bit of a shame and somewhat 'd is because science has delivered these vaccines are not real scientists we did our job you know well i wasn't directly involved in it but i know lots of the scientists who were and they did a tremendous job but we've got we've got probably 11 highly efficacious and so you've back so use available you know in the mission now is vaccinate the whole world as quickly as we can and you say 'd wasn't with most things in life humans get involved you see and then we see the various issues there are well let's take a recess and the controversy surrounding the ad.