day here 23rd of march in the headlines germany imposes yet another round of harsh restrictions as a huge scandal over political profiteering from facemasks sales hits the top now with the health minister himself in the firing line will tell you more. protesters meantime hit the streets across europe against painful new measures people tell us why they just cannot take anymore. we're fed up we no longer know wishful to stand a little lost it's all a blur the thing is you can restrict life so much we are here in castle today because all the measures that are being taken here in germany no longer serve the people. in this hour moscow no longer has any relations with the

e.u. as an organization i say it's new in russia's top diplomat makes that stunning revelation in the wake of repeated snubs by brussels that. until now u.s. forces journalists have in egypt stand in another country to photograph what's happening in the united states journalists warn the biden ministrations stopping them from filming the migrant crisis is brewing there at the moment as the u.s. grapples with a big surge of refugees in decades. by their live from moscow this tuesday this is r.t. international with me kevin oh in 30 minutes for the latest from us and plenty to talk about there as you just heard this is 1st german chancellor angela merkel's warned the covert situation in the country is very serious as she's announced

a new round of harsh nationwide restrictions till mid april it includes a ban on gatherings and the closure of shops it's effectively shutting down public activity over east. even you that when we are in a situation which is very serious the number of cases is rising exponentially and intensive care beds affiliate up again it comes after a german research institute confirmed the country had now entered the 3rd wave of infections last week saw the highest number of daily coronavirus cases in 2 months and a massive corruption scandal on top of all that over facemasks is no reach the top with the health minister himself facing questions our europe correspondent got the latest the federal government here in berlin has extended covert 19 restrictions across the whole country but that is amid a mask crisis which is ensnared a new face the german health minister a report over the weekend in the online version of news magazine dish claimed again

spawn authorize the purchase of more than half a 1000000 masks from a company called bird bird as berlin boss mr spawn's husband himself down your phone care the company insists mr frewen care had nothing to do with this transaction that no commission was paid and denies any wrongdoing whatsoever and 1st on to work order media that the board of hooper birds of media offer the health ministry of justice to its masque procurement when the german government wants an urgent need for this this see your proof of the minister directly that kind of act and the minister of defense but that means that the border representative in berlin mr from k. was not informed about the mask business neither by his company nor his husband who had been the direct contact person that contradicts common sense. and i can only repeat that according to bird there mr spawn's husband was not informed or involved

in the transaction at any time but early a version of the article had claimed the bird it was owned by the health ministers husband that was later corrected to reflect mr for and his role as an employee about how to stop lawmakers from seeking clarification from the health minister this salami tactic with the bit by bit information from the ministry of health about the procurement of masks undermines the trust in the institutions of our democracy it has to stop we now need an end dependent transparency officer to shed light on what is going on the health minister himself is biased mr spawn's our eyes have dismissed the article as thin soup but opposition parties are circling and can smell blood the blood a publishing house owns papers like the dow also deals in masks half a 1000000 went to spawn's health ministry has been representative this spawns husband both like to attend buddha parties because somehow the villar has to be

paid one does one actually have to do the merkel kevin and to be dismissed of course procurement have to be done quickly during the crisis but the wording of $4600000000.00 euro suave out a call for tenders is under considerable suspicion in view of the corruption scandals to a ruling coalition politicians of already fall into to personal business dealings in mosques for profit scandals but what started out as a probe into a pandemic profiteering now morphed into a wider investigation into what money german politicians have been making aside from their ministerial salaries the scandal has caused real damage to the ruling conservative union's reputation they suffered for huge historic losses in recent local elections with the green party taking up. the slack in one of those areas and nationally when it comes to polling they were emerging as

a real potential challenger in this september's bundestag elections in what's being called the super election year here in germany there couldn't be a worse time to have the whiff of corruption surrounding you peter oliver r.t. berlin. discussed the situation in germany in more depth with a member of the ruling party embroiled in the mask scandal he told me the country is more divided than ever and to make things worse people are fed up with contradictory locked rules have been introduced by the government germany has never been as polarized as this and in post-war history we have a gap between rich and rich and poor country and city young and old left and right nationalists and patriots people are fed up or see a lockdown as i've just heard reports from from a different source from russia that pretty much life is back to normal it's it's tough it's one of the toughest countries in germany some of the european countries too but germany politicians are basically toppling over each other to raise the bar

to make it even more difficult for people plus the vaccination council germans if they used to one thing are used to an orderly state orderly administrative procedures and we don't see any of this and we see contradictory. administered orders we see contradictory and failing state policies so germans are fed up but they don't or all of the requisite and appropriate conclusions in the right numbers that this government has failed. but germans are the only ones in the e.u. increasingly frustrated with the handling of the pandemic next them from paris for you our correspondent there charlotte abend skee gauging the mood of other europeans as they too warm they'll no longer take economically damaging restrictions the following images maybe from the weekend reflecting that.

on the streets of europe these are all the scenes that have been playing out this country is what's again are announcing a fresh wave of restrictions as the 3rd wave hits rallies protesting against what they branded health dictatorships were held from austria to sweden serbia to switzerland from poland to france demonstrators say they simply have enough we don't know enough we're fed up we no longer know which flew to stand on a little lost the soul of blur we have the impression of being muzzled we're not free. we no longer have a social life this restrictions are totally useless i just feel like come along we can go out like we want as long as we have our significant so should we change the

restrictions may be coming in germany more than $20000.00 troops to the streets in the city of care so one must protest just to try to recent reversal will be easing the destruction was a threat to freedoms. to here in ca we are here in castle today because all the measures that are being taken here in germany no longer serve the people but i consider corona virus to be a serious disease just like the flu which can also be very serious but to make a pandemic out of it as we are experiencing now with many restrictions on our basic rights i don't think that is justified. we want to cannons and pepper spray we used to disperse protest is the tactic was also used in the netherlands protesters were left wet but they were made. undeterred across in the u.k. in the capital of london protesters defied

a current ban on public demonstrations they demanded the rules can change a pool echoed by more than 60 and he's they've written to the whom circuitries saying quote malloy saying people protesting was no to acceptable or if you believe it was no proof for you dozens were arrested as tempers for 8. please leave. me. leave. you to be in mass a different term who was taken in deployed 8 system health regulations house to stop the streets for the un declared political party atmosphere shut down by officials as it descended into destruction.

nothing justifies destroying collective efforts to contain the virus nothing justifies desecrating the side of the root bind building collapse nothing justifies attacking children's games and public facilities. all the easy ways trying to tackle vaccine shortages it's admitted to making mistakes during the pandemic but have lessons been learned and i think decisions are still being made on the go and not very thought free. i think they're not doing a very good job at it even if it's working but by luck not really by design i think that. in some extent is a land of very sick of it but i think that. is the most important thing to ease as and czar is a new concern to save europe and little i think we have learned from and we took action by. the thing is you can restrict life so much easier citizens are once again feeling the pain of tightening restrictions but

after more than a year of living by the rules it seems now that more and more people believe that they are if they do damned if they don't show. ati paris. russia's foreign minister as well that relations with the you as an institution are essentially dead speaking or a news conference with his chinese counterpart few hours ago that. the brussels has killed off all cooperation. so you don't have any relations with the european union as an organization the infrastructure of further relations was destroyed by unilateral decisions from brussels so on the face of it study. ever see a correspondence here to pick it apart a bit doesn't mean there's not going to be any business in future that looks like it's going to be business with individual countries not as a bloc with the sounds of it here to make sure that he's understood properly the

russian foreign minister he's talking about relations with relations with various european countries they have their 5 you know that in some cases thrive and depending on the country and what their attitude is towards russia but relations with this huge bureaucratic machine called the european union those relations have burned in the ashes have been scattered and this was in the works since 2014 specified the foreign ministry said that back then when these sanctions began to be introduced one after another package of sanctions off the package of sanctions that is when the european union struck down counseled a slew of multitude of admirals summits high profile annual summit between various russian european commissions and departments and ministries there were a lot of those and ever since then that was the chasm ever since then there's been a steep slope a decline and here russia says that it's ready it's ready to resume relations to

restore rebuild trust if the european union is ready to do so itself and you you know what did you expect russia says that it is ready to work with the european union but it won't bend over backwards to suit european interests it loosely work with europe and things that are beneficial for both sides as equals and here russia says that you know what did you expect when you went down this path this is this is what you make sure what happened in charge is much the same opinion . you compels me. china and russia but they know it's a lie under invented pretenses and attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of china russia a long gone result to uphold international justice remains undiminished of the statement taking place in beijing sergey lavrov was there mentioned you touched on china there as well you know russia's saying yes it wants negotiate face to face

with various countries in the e.u. that's not off but all schools want to talk to run it wants to talk to china and do business with china as well how is that kind of relationship going on outside of it the russian chinese one well over the look at it this way 3 when it comes to russia there isn't much the european union and especially the united states that they haven't sanction they have feasibly sanction every organization every individual that they could be ministers we're talking about here i mean what we're. talking about that the people of the european union are supposed to talk to are on their sanctions list and when it comes to when it comes to china they have switched their gaze and to speak to chad let's be honest in the long term the europeans and the americans understand this well china is a much bigger potential threat to the european union to the united states its population eclipses that of russia its economy eclipses that of russia it's a military spending is enormous. in the future there might be efforts

and we're seeing the beginning the beginnings of those now to sort of try and contain china by the european union by the united states they've tried this with russia and in the better half of a decade the sanctions have you know resulted in absolutely nothing that they wanted russia is still behaving in a way that russia wants that suits its national interest and they have begun sanction in charge of the style of the latest sanctions the chinese foreign ministry says to do with the people's rights violations as the europeans put a. the european ambassador was summoned the chinese protested the decision but all timidly in the future when we have the european commission's issuing reports saying that they're incredibly worried about china and russia growing all buddy buddy their relations you know grow inclusive military ties political ties this is the point that they should look back on this is when they drew for russia and china

together and the russian foreign minister himself said that you know there are plenty of opportunities in the east. the european union destroyed all mechanisms to re have been trying to build over many years we have a sparklers individual european countries guided by their national interests and that objectively leads to the fact that our relations with china are developing faster than what is left of relations with european countries. and that's the problem the longer this breakdown in relations between russia and the european union goes on the type that inclusive relations will be with china so going into the future when relations are much better much closer to china why break them up why you turn to europe what would be the point of europe or russia interested to hear what the european from brussels reaction is going to be to this later on bring us up to speed william thank you very much more of our senior correspondent there

our focus in on this next u.s. is struggling with an unprecedented migrants crisis on its southwestern border a record 5000 unaccompanied children alone are reportedly being held in border patrol custody so investigative journalism group project veritas then releasing these shocking images from a micro for city and donna texas self 3000 immigrants have been kept in pods for up to those silver space blanket strong keep warm best they can 50 of the refugees are believed to were here to tested positive for covert in the last few days alone the managing editor of project. told us more. there is a major influx of illegal immigrants and that is according to the source of my view 50 of them are coded. that sexual assaults he does go assaults take place daily our sources told us that there is many as 3000 migrants in this facility in donna texas at one time they're very cramped from the photographs you can see it's very spartan

living there's not a lot of mats or beds or cots they are living in a difficult very tight spot it looks like a nightmare it looks like like something out of a fiction novel you can look back as far as comments from this administration encouraging people to rush to the border encouraging people to climb any barriers just any way you can over it under it get in and we will take care of you a plain and simple people are coming over sick or not legal or not and they're being processed and it's being done in an awful matter now that we've uncovered the conditions here but it just seems like mass chaos and yes there is again other care and it seems gearing up while the democratic party lawmakers also released images from the same city in texas migrants and clearly youngsters are being held in terms of overflow facilities and chronic conditions hundreds of children have allegedly

been stranded in these patrol custody sites across the area for more than 10 days breaking guidelines border crossings from mexico face a 20 year high record right now presenting a really difficult challenge for the bike did ministration you'd think but by the administration played down the emergency. children presenting at our border who are fleeing violence or flaying prosecution who are fleeing terrible situations it's not a crisis well it just points we've got washington d.c. officials going back and forth about whether or not what's happening at the border is really a crisis we've got biden promising that he will visit the border meanwhile we've got the border officials and leaders of the democratic party in congress urging the administration to get back to reality take their share of the blame for the policies that seem to have mentioned this crisis and really get a grip on what is happening you have

a breach on national security levels that have never before been seen in modern history it just blows my mind how disconnected from reality they are or maybe they do know maybe they just don't want to call a spade a spade you know because it's uncomfortable it's a slap in the face i think they're you just want to let you know what's going on we need to get a handle on this before against out of hand even within a week i was already calling the white house to say hey guys you've got to take a look at it when you create a system that incentivizes people to come across and they're released that immediately sends a message to central america that if you come across you can stay while there are big calls for the administration to get things under control and start responding to what many are calling a crisis it seems like the biden administration does not want there to be media access to what is happening on the border and the u.s. facilities that have been set up one journalist was quite outraged about the fact

that he had to go to another country just to take photographs of what was happening here in the united states you have to stand on one side of the border i respectfully ask u.s. customs and border protection to stop blocking media access to their border operations i have photographed c.b.p. under bush a bomb and trump but now 0. access is granted to media these long lens images taken from the mexican site until now u.s. faces journalists have needed to stand in another country to photograph what's happening in the united states now many will recall that while donald trump was president so to graphs of children held in facilities detention facilities that were set up during the obama administration were widely circulated and there was mass discussion and outrage about you know what they referred to in the media as huge as in cages and there was widespread does that ing of the facilities your recall congresswoman alexandria because you know cortez had a well publicized visit to the detention facility and there was widespread coverage

but the biden administration seems to be rather adamant that it is simply not appropriate to give the media access and to publicize what is going on at the u.s. borders i don't necessarily think that it's appropriate for a journalist to be inside centers that are at that are in are not permanent place places for children that children are not placed there permanently now white house spokesperson jen psaki says that the biden ministration is very committed to what she calls transparency but it seems like when it comes to the situation at the border it's much better to divert people's eyes and change the subject and try to avoid bringing attention to something that is to resolve a situation that many are referring to as a crisis. a senior u.s. federal judge has accused practically the country's entire maybe a from t.v. to newspapers to radio of being puppets for the democratic party of the public

opposed to agree with most now saying outlets in their view support political positions rather than inform. the increased power of the press is so dangerous today because with very close to one party control of these institutions the new york times and washington post a virtually democratic party broadsheets nearly all television network and cable is a democratic party trumpet a democratic party trumpet i mean what tim exaggeration it's not like they treated his inauguration as the 2nd coming of christ in the inaugural address the beginning had a little bit of soaring rhetoric a teeny bit at the end in the middle it sounded almost like a homily like a priest explaining something from the bible well they were just excited once it was actually in the white house they saw this throwing the tough questions at him. out of them although not to my current crisis the media's not about that but they did go wild of those weird c.g.i.

hands or maybe they were just expecting the other president and our president harrison i took a virtual tour vaccination centers on and i will admit though that seldom that's what's great in times of timing because remember that bombshell recording with donald trump pressuring elections investigated georgia to find him ballots so he wouldn't have to move out of the white house while the recording revealed that the post misquoted trump's comments on the cool based on information provided by a source did not tell the investigator to find the frauds or say she would be a national hero if she did so instead truckloads be investigated to scrutinize ballots as in she would find dishonesty there you will notice that establishment media errors emissions mistakes and outright lie so we slanted one way against me and against republicans meanwhile stories that her democrats or undermined their narratives are buried ignored or delayed until they can do the least harm media

outlets should be regarded as political entities not journalistic enterprise yes but that's just an exception because when it came to trump the washington post was very sad. an honest and objective and balanced and anyway trump at fox news on his side always share leading yes i have heard how some democrats want cable companies to drop fox news one american news network on news max but maybe you shouldn't spread conspiracy theories no i'm not interested in what silberman said he should be borne in mind that the 1st step taken by any potential for tarion or dictatorial regime has to gain control of communications particularly the delivery of news it is fair to conclude therefore that one party control of the press and media is a threat to a viable democracy well that's a huge saturation no one watches the news anymore anyway it's all about social media just that one twitter not a democrat party trump it to be seen silicon valley also has an enormous influence

over the distribution of news and it simply filters news delivery in ways favorable to the democratic party and although upstart conservative networks have emerged in recent years their visibility has been decidedly tailed by social media he either by direct bans or content based censorship well that's not true what about policy what do you mean apple amazon and google. i'm sure it was for a good reason and i asked the censoring content yes that was the one time that twitter brought that one link to the new york post article about hunter biden's business dealings but it's not like it was a big story that could've i don't know swayed an election and anyway there are other hard hitting stories to report on. some media pundits warn that that could trigger an assassination attempt so anyway

it's a total mystery to me why faith in the us media is an all time low. for israelis. at the polls for a 4th time in just 2 years today tuesday with the country's coalition repeatedly breaking down in disagreement but with a vast majority disliking caretaker pm by the minute yahoo's approach to the pandemic seems this race responding even tighter than usual paula slee reports from tel aviv. once again israelis are hitting to the polls to on so one simple question bibi or no bibi and if there's no straight on such just like they wasn't in the last 3 elections they'll be another round of 50 election in short succession yeah most definitely definitely there will be you know maybe we'll win again. for sadly i think you say he's too many years we've been prime minister and he's it's affecting him and not sell like him or dislike him just i want to

a different on the peace recent track record has been patchy at based he might be counting on israel's high vaccination rate pushing him over the line but the prime minister's overall handling of the covert crisis has been hugely unpopular so response one of the world's worst infection rates per capita and measures that have been questioned by locals for a long time. what small noble allies all the work he had foam american president donald trump did for the so-called good of israel could soon be slipping through his fingers biden calling bibi almost one month off his inauguration prompting room is of sniping israel's leader he's likely to be forced to make

a coalition with as many as 12 posses making the incoming government if there is one unstable and short term in the last 1520 years there are more and more little more qualities. be very big the political so the leader. must. be very defensible today could you nation the fact that the little people. good evil good to go to stations and they will have the. ability to build a coalition and the everybody. should or should be should be able to make compromises this is the 1st israeli election in the throes of corona watching from the sidelines of the palestinians who despite the oversupply effects of nations in israel have seen precious little of it themselves we are people and their occupation and usually the end of the international law the occupying.