destroyed. hospitals are likely to be rocked by an unprecedented short. weeks french hospital chiefs ringing the alarm on an unprecedented burden as the country sets horrific new pandemic records for the year the government's response leaves we will that. we don't understand the new rules for example we're supposed to be in lockdown can get we're walking in the chandeliers a lot of g. 8 speech facebook is sued for repeatedly following online threats to journalists and spreading misinformation examine how the platform is now facing crackdowns across the world. preparations and recriminations chicago's become america's 1st city to compensate black residents for housing

discrimination experts though are divided on its real value. it's quite an encouraging development and you. know it's not really anything it's like a housing program disguised reparations for slavery. from moscow thanks for joining us today here on our teams national i'm daniel hawkins we start with breaking news this hour the german chancellor angela merkel has backtracked on a decision to impose a 5 day lockdown over the easter period that had been announced earlier in the week comes after a massive waves of criticism protests across the country let's cross live now to our correspondents in brought in feet all over for more details peter you've been across the story here why is that change of heart understand the devil's in the

detail here. well quite simply the chancellors have to say that it wasn't legally enforceable in such a short frame of time what had been intended was that next week when it's the easter holidays here that 5 days would pretty much be shut down across germany supermarkets would only be open on the 3rd on the saturday and all of the times pretty much everything else would be shut down church services all online wherever political and. yes restrictions on the on how many people could meet together now that emerged after over 12 hours the talks that started on monday evening run right through to the wee small hours of tuesday the meeting was between angela merkel the federal government here in berlin and the leaders of the 16 states that make up germany and the merkel has now announced that she was wrong to have made that decision the chancellor said she bears full responsibility saying that it was

a mistake and been identified as a mistake and that she takes responsibility for it now there is a u. turn on that u. turn has sparked a bit of a difference in opinion when it comes to more politicians in her own party in her own conservative union the center right bloc here in germany marcus zada who's the leader of the state of the varia also content to potentially to be the successor to angola merkel as chancellor said he respected the decision from the former angler merkel to admit her mistakes and to say that it wasn't legally doable well it she has far as he's concerned it took some guts for her to do that however. the similar position is mr but in the state of hesse they're not happy at all e says what we're doing now shows that we didn't know what we were doing then and feels that the whole of the party the whole of the government of being left to feel like they looked like idiots arm in lash it who's also

a contender to take over. after the bundestag elections in september that has been viewed it with a little bit more of a wider lens saying not just the chancellor needs to take responsibility for this all of the 16 leaders of the german states were in the meeting with her they all signed off on it they should have voiced these concerns then not now after angela merkel's come out and taken responsibility. really this is not looking good it's a big huge public climbdown on what had been a huge public policy that is being put in place it follows the numbers of covert 1000 cases here in germany rising above the levels at which what's called the emergency brake was going to have to be pulled 'd not supposed to come in after $100.00 cases per 100000 of the population on tuesday that was at around one $108.00 cases per 100000 of the population it would have required the pulling of

the emergency brake handle a merkel now saying that what she did intended to put in place can't be put in place and that's why she says she's made this u. turn it's not a good look as i say more evidence peter the pandemic is still far from over despite everyone's best hopes peace over there with the latest from. the german capital thanks peter. france's health care system risks unprecedented shock within weeks of the government fails to deal with the new covert surge that's the warning at least coming from the country's hospital federation chief. if you prefer my actions have been taken given this delay hospitals are likely to be rocked by an unprecedented violent shock in 2 to 3 weeks. all of that wave of infections kicked in last week there are now more than 26000 patients in hospitals across the country that's the highest figure this month and over 4000 in intensive care it's

a grim record for 2021 there's no sation of emergency doctors told us or thought he was a response has been woeful and. hospitals across france are struggling facing a shortage of beds in the i.c.u. there is an influx of patients their numbers are growing at an unprecedented pace the problem results from the fact that the government hasn't provided any extra beds for a year already furthermore our country is falling behind in vaccinations pharmaceutical companies have delayed their supply shipments are an occupation rate is very low compared to other nations like morocco or serbia where health care efficiency is inferior. and many are stunned by the mixed messages coming from the french government made harsh lockdowns and official warnings of dire consequences ministers alerting hairdressers and chocolate shops they open for french morale so lewinsky has this report. you'd think that by the time the 3rd lockdown was

announced the parts of france that the government would be. termed it this is what you can do this is what you can't do but it's been anything but the case do you think you understand there were strict now in place soon places like paris. now it's. better but it's typical shows you got some points there too much numbers but. not too well it's a little bit lax we can do it like. they were clear enough they are good at differentiating the things faster realizing that they're fuzzy just not really a lockdown. you can research issues but we can buy this. mistaken. after 6 pm. after suffering not really i didn't thank you. we don't understand the need. for example we're supposed to be in last out yet we're

walking in the chandeliers there are a lot of people even though it's tuesday normally during lockdown there should not be so many people yet. there are a lot of people in the press and when the prime minister announced that 16 regions would be heading back into a lockdown last week he said citizens would have to once again fill out public mission reforms to show that they were leaving home for essential reasons when the new forms were published they contained so many options as to why you could leave home they caused widespread confusion. say zhang cost tax how come here allow me to take a breath 10 kilometers away but force my dog to stay within one kilometer of his candle i come home from work certificate i pick up the kids from school certificate i buy a bread certificate it's a little after 7 pm certificate luckily i have no dog originally the 21

or so 1000000 people impacted by the new lock down were told they could travel up to 10 kilometers from their homes unfortunately they dogs could only go one kilometer mulcted poked fun at even the government had to admit that the form was called lex and soon it was true the less you need into trouble more than 10 kilometers i don't want to go out of the curfew as yes that's the only place the next level of befuddlement came as it emerged that most of the businesses that thought they would be closed as they were not essential like florist headdress and chocolate shops were told they could stay open we made some exceptions such as he dresses for french people we did it because the reaper fissions like florist to make whole food turnover during spring we did it for the chocolate is because it's easter so is it we owe. a lot like as it's been

up here and do people in paris know what they can and can't do do you think you can eat lunch with your friends in the park yeah. i think it's possible no they've said it's not they do not recommend eating lunch with your friends right now i think we have the right to eat in a park with friends to go out after 7 pm under certain conditions i think yes but visiting friends at home no i don't think that's possible after 7 pm we don't have the right with the curfew we don't have the right it is all just. king aside a year of bouncing in and out of lockdown says certainly brought everyone to the same feeling that of being generally fed up and you can't help but feel french government is in its own confusion about what we should and shouldn't be doing causing perhaps unnecessary public anxiety shows even ski r.t.

paris. or here in russia vladimir vaccinated the kremlin has confirmed that president putin had the pope at 19 job but whichever one will remain a mystery with official saying there won't specify the exact shot in order to highlight but all 3 russian vaccines are both safe and effective and more than 6000000 of their 1st job in russia since the inoculation campaign started over 4000000 of those have already had both doses as you can see the infection rates in the country have fall and the number of daily new cases is now 10000 ortiz uncross of ski spoke to the deputy prime minister about the vaccine program and how it differs from the rest of you if you say that vaccination is safe and we're monitoring it safety would it be easier for the government to make it more or less mandatory or if not forcing people strongly compelling them as in israel if you

don't want to be vaccinated don't leave your house. russia has extensive experience nationwide vaccination we have got used to it's voluntary nature i think trying to pressure force people to get the chip or stay at home because they haven't been inoculated that's wrong because everyone is different we're now seeing a scandal unfolding around the astra zeneca vaccine while the w.h.o. says that it's too early to draw any conclusions and suspending it may be unnecessary what do you think what is your general attitude to this scandal. we are extremely careful when it comes to any data connected to side effects potentially provided by this or that product why because we did not have the opportunity to fully check it using medical data in this case we can only speak about ourselves and here i can say that each country it's strictly monitoring all of the potential posts vaccination side effects the vaccination process should not be politicized because the process itself is aimed at one particular goal saving lives and

protecting the population. when shall we not politicizing this as a country. we are saying that the country created 3 product of its own we're telling the whole world about them in the same way that everyone else is why wouldn't we it's our chief meant we're proud of it at the end of the day it's an appraisal of russian science which some have been trying to diminish and say we are not capable of anything we are in the long run we do acknowledge that there could be a 3rd way there may be a slight increase but why is it massive everywhere but moderate in russia well we see how deep the male logical situation is developing in europe and in russia one of the reasons for this development is that they were constantly unlocked and people stayed at home they did not go outside their sterile in the sense of the virus so then they go out and catch that's why they never developed collective immunity right essentially yes when do you think this will all end we'll. now

working on the assumption that we will achieve 60 percent collective immunity by august it is clear that most likely there will be some seasonality everyone has been talking about that. so it could come back in october. yes but i really hope people will get vaccinated because dealing with the consequences of the disease will be far more difficult than getting voluntarily inoculated. global media watchdog reporters without borders has filed a mass lawsuit against facebook for letting hate speech flourish during falls videos on the pandemic that have been watched millions of times is just one of a serious allegations that our hitting the tech sheilds across the world. reporters without borders lawsuit demonstrates that the california based company's undertakings to its consumers are largely mendacious and that it allows dissent

from ation and hate speech to flourish on its network contrary to the claims made in its terms of service and through its ads facebook a mere pittance has grown to be too large for the company itself even its exacts when unaware of being filmed of course admitting the giant has to be tamed. to. do it but until this happens it's up to individual countries to rein in the dominance of facebook and they do the u.k. has taken the social network to court for losing control of the data of british hughes's italy find the company over the lack of transparency in their privacy policies facebook was misleading users to register on its platform by not informing them immediately inadequately of the collection activity with commercial intent of

the data provided by them astray or forced facebook into a commercial deal making it pay news corp us trulia for journalism from its local mastheads but only after an ill tempered fight in which facebook inadvertently shut down some of vital information services in australia. on the side of over and for cement in doing so some content was blocked inadvertently even in the united states where facebook is widely viewed as a mass mind control tool in the hands of political establishment is taking steps to limit its reach for these books user profiles would allegedly reveal an individual's likes dislikes interests and habits over a significant amount of time without affording users a meaningful opportunity to control or. and the unauthorized exploration of their private life some say the big tech has replaced big oil as the global corporate power play up except it controls not only the money but also information streams

and whether its concerns about snooping censorship or monopoly practices the raw signs that the global mood could be turning on the online giant but it won't go down without a fight fairly powerful groups like media organizations and governments coming out their facebook from very different angles and that none of those entities are powerful facebook is right now that of course might be one reason that actually these governments are a little worried about facebook's our release trying to reign it in you're already a very very scary territory all right and it's only going to keep going in the same direction that it has made it go and governments are or have been slow to rein this in governments and sort of try to do anything about it he said giants are stronger than governments they are the most powerful forces on the planet their own stock of course of the planet has ever seen they control the conversation they can stroll to get see her he doesn't get to be here they control what you see they control what

you buy they know everything about you they are showing us who's in charge. still to come on exclusive for the wrong president sells auti what the time is what the u.s. can have a be thanks that's coming up in just a few but was time. during

the trump administration the u.s. agreed to leave afghanistan by may 1st the biden ministration is wavering over this commitment they claim the conditions on the ground are not favorable for withdrawal this begs the question what can be done now that has not been tried when the. welcome back to the program the issue of reparations in the united states has split opinion after chicago became the 1st city to pay black residents who've suffered housing discrimination or thirty's of approved a $10000000.00 package setting aside $25000.00 for each eligible family the money

used to be spent on home repairs or is down payments on property over a sions will be funded by income from annual cannabis taxes over the next decade old polls though found just one in 5 people agreed damages should be paid to the descendants of slaves so many also question how eligibility for such programs is the time and with race ancestry and evidence of discrimination all being considered we put the issue up for debate with our guests. it's quite in the current ging development it's quite new and heard of. it is a 1st step towards. repairing or implementing some sort of prison or to justice. for a historical injustice that the black people have suffered from no it's not really anything because i mean the elephant in the room here is that this is not slavery reparations it's only kind of like a housing program disguised days reparations for slavery because there was never

any slavery in evanston let alone chicago which is that dinner every where every say news let's face it whatever it's done whatever kind of financial reparations would never repair that historical injustice that those people have suffered from i mean this is just impossible money would not buy people's lives bad or repair that suffering it is mostly symbolic it was a point only did it was to be paid it should have been pay and slave holding places to former slaves from the former slave owner or from the state that's what it should have been about what i think when i say it's a big it is a 1st step it is a 1st step but only and only if people keep pushing and the systemic racism is really challenge not only in cities or states but over the in the country such as actually i would go if we even beyond that it's actually a global issue what it is issues dokken to bow out don't really understand what

we're saying i mean if there's ever sort of racism or some way of say some mean of somebody in mean does that mean that the state has to come in and pay some money there's a me out a mad tax money after pay or some kind of corporation day it was never really involved with it i mean this is not really going to happen there will be issues of course this will be misused some will be some will use this as a token and say ok you've been paid and that's basically you have to shut up and then you should not ask for more but i think we. have to be realistic it is not enough strew but it should be used as a basis force or larger social movement that ask for much more at the national level. iran's supreme leader has warned he doesn't trust the u.s. to keep its word on lifting sanctions and without that iran won't return to a nuclear deal and exclusive we speak to the country's former president on whether it will ever see eye to eye with washington. a c s at the how would you evaluate

the foreign policy of rouhani is government in terms of the nuclear deal think sions and the new u.s. administration is it heading in the right direction that yes we are waiting for changes to u.s. foreign policy the problem between the us and iran runs much deeper than just the nuclear deal if someone thinks that the deal is the only leverage for settling issues between the 2 countries this is very far from the reality the problem is much wider and it needs to be addressed on different levels both parties have to solve problems based on fairness and mutual respect discrepancies between iran and the us are based on history and the nuclear deal alone can't fix this we've seen how the nuclear deal was fine and writing but it resulted in nothing positive in reality the reason as i've already mentioned is that the problem is way more complicated moreover the deal wasn't concluded according to international standards besides if both parties intend to compromise on something they will find

a solution for any problems that emerge in the future 6 countries have been negotiating over not letting iran turn into a nuclear state those countries sat at the negotiating table with iran the deal said it clearly if there is a new dispute each country has one voice during the vote over that issue thus those countries which disagreed with iran on something they had 6 votes and iran had only one and we hope that europe will use its abilities as a mediator between the us and iran you know if it wants to mediate it needs to have a wide range of tools for that whatever that means for them when we were counting on that but i don't think the 2 countries are really in need of a mediator if only we could settle all the current issues of course we should welcome all initiatives aimed at genuine mediation. that the room was hit by the killing of general constance the limb on the last year what do you make of his killing him do you think the country's response for the straw. in the least was

enough we have to delve into the roots of this murder did it solve any problem and assassination is the most disgusting action taken by anyone even when 2 science or warring against each other the well of war is a clear cut thing but when it happens between 2 parties that simply have disagreements and assassination doesn't solve any problem the assassination was carried out by those who have been calling for fighting against terrorism i hope that terrorism will be defeated one day and no one will use terrorist methods and commit murder to reach their goals and that no one will use a weapon if they can use reason and words to address the world considering the double standards it leads to disagreements it's not good when someone imposes their own idea on others via murder that's true regardless of the person who's killed i reiterate in principle assess the nation is a bad thing the martyr qassim soleimani was

a prominent figure and his biography is well known so at the end of the day does anyone think that a mere response is important to that would never solve anything is the american government has to realize the necessity of changing its policy which their attitude during the last 70 to 80 years not only hasn't settled anything but has an aggravated everything much more the whole. thing in the reason will the pandemic news still making so many headlines easy for many of us then to have a look at this year marks a poignant anniversary for one big part of the world it's a decade now since the arab spring spread throughout the middle east that left behind devastation what's worse for some countries than others the case in point one particular states with close ties to washington. the arab spring is a massive opportunity to spread peace prosperity democracy and fight to the

security but only if we really seized the opportunity. this is saudi arabia's worst nightmare isn't it. the saudi arabia is drafting sauza security personnel in an attempt to crush a growing revolt in the kingdom in them attempts to avoid and resting up the life unveiled a massive social welfare package that many critics see this as a way perhaps by people signing. the planned day of rage inside the arabia perhaps it would be protesters hopes were dashed by strict security measures stern warning by saudi officials against any protests so where does the u.s. fit but in perspective for us saudi arabia has always served as the safety net whether it comes to oil you know in the oil price gets too high in the united states asked the saudis problem or i'll bring the price of oil down and they've always done it there are reports that king abdullah told the bahraini authorities next door that if they don't crush their own sheer revolt his forces will.

be crackdown came just a day after the body is king declared martial law and called in troops from neighboring saudi arabia to help shut down the protests we are showing the people of this world just to help us to do something for these people we are peaceful to the fullest we're asking for our legitimate rights and nothing else innocent people are being killed. the u.k. for example has not been more outspoken more assertive about the fact the people have been tortured people have lost their lives we have been shot at you know the government over whom we have no influence. saudi arabia executed 47 people today it's largest mass executions since 19861 of the bodies and the severed head. put on public display as a warning it's a big folly to rely on so-called international organizations and governments because this saudi government the way it is it is because as american and british

support. mr vice president the cia has concluded that the leader of saudi arabia directed the murder of u.s. based journalist jamal khashoggi president trump is not punished senior saudi these would you. and i would make it very clear we were going to in fact make them pay the price and make them in fact a pariah that they are ready to do all show the reporter get credit oh you know yes . the u.s. president left it out fact no the newly declassified report from the director of national intelligence. chrome prince mohammed bin selman approved the operation president's intention as is the intention of this government is to. to recalibrate . with saudi arabia so what we've done by the actions that we've taken is really not to rupture the relationship or to recalibrate.

no country use the perfect girl like perfect partner without any reservations whatsoever so you know welcome to the to the real world. so 10 years on so much has changed and yet for some apparently so little you can watch that report in full on our you tube on instagram accounts plus check out social media for all the latest news. we're talking briefly now to our breaking news story this hour. is back trucks on her decision to impose a national 5 day looked out over the east the period here's how the german leader explained. they're not for the leaders agreement was the idea was a mistake there were good reasons for it but it could not be implemented well enough in the short term this mistake is my mistake alone a mistake must be called a mistake and above all it must be corrected and if possible that has to happen in time.