e.u. officials seek to reassure people that the. presidency is costing lives there all the damage to the public trust is already done. since it has been shown that there are people who have unfortunately died after getting vaccinated the risk is low in their best interest i think we don't know what to trust between the dark. germany revealed. by russia. as long as it gets approval from the e.u. regulator. italy's prime minister. president. of the european commission chief. refused to share it.

and ultimately relegated to a nearby sofa also this hour. with the international space station. for the 60th anniversary of the 1st spaceflight. very warm welcome to you from all of us here in moscow. we saw the program in europe where governments saw split on whether to restrict the use of the. job. the european commission warned that without a unified response public confidence could falter so we hit the streets of paris to gauge reaction. it's confusing yes because to say that the laws change from

one country to another while the product is the same we wonder on which study they are based those who had complications were rather young so they said let's stop it for the young but not for the old well i mean it's weird their management of the thing is not clear what he's got for me there is a risk since it has been shown that there are people who have unfortunately died after getting vaccinated it is important to get out of this health crisis and therefore we have to weigh the benefits of the risks of saying the risk is low in their best interest i think so they are never going to say that the risk is high and so that's right that doesn't surprise me confusing there is a bit of confusion we don't know what to trust so i feel a bit of the dark concerns over a potential link between astra zeneca and red blood clots is exposing the latest divisions within the e.u. after the book's agency that evaluates in supervises medicinal products that may

once again said the benefits of the vaccine weigh the risks but saying that blood clots should be listed as a rare side effect not although we're convinced that measures have been taken it's eerie in spain of joined ranks with germany deciding to limit the job to those who are over the age of 60 belgium has followed suit with province now only recommending astra zeneca for those over $55.00 but those differences a causing a headache for brussels it's worried that without a common policy towards astra zeneca trust in vaccinations could be eroded commissioner he just as member states to ask experts to work with him up to the hokie coherent approach across the region through their guidance and analysis the trust he seeks trini important we want to avoid. course the 6 nations however it

may be that this ship has already sailed here in front there have been reports of people not turning up but they could be vaccination if it's astra zeneca and confusion over who should and who shouldn't have it is right there is also a question to be almost about why certain countries are making unilateral decisions against deep voice of the may yet certain that may be simple the head of germany's vaccine commission said the a.m.a. evaluates vaccines based on what's of benefit to all in the e.u. individual countries though can be more picky in germany we have a slightly different situation because we're not so dependent on the astra zeneca vaccine and we can postpone vaccines and thereby achieve the same effect but in the end we still have the risk of these serious side effects in a certain age group over in the u.k. new restrictions on astra zeneca or even tighter than those that have been taken by

the european neighbors the previously the u.k. dismissed questions raised about the jab now the government committee is recommending that healthy people under 30 who are provided with a different vaccine and those who are aged 18 to 29 years old should be offered an alternative covert night in fact seen in preference to the astra zeneca vaccine regulators are now would voicing that astra zeneca provides another update on possible side effects and while for some the idea that they have a toy any chance of developing a fatal blood clot may be too much others say that they will gladly take the risk in a big to put an end to the current nightmare so all of the will be out see paris. germany's health minister has announced the country is in negotiations to buy the sputnik shot from russia once the vaccine has e.u. approval mr yens spawn expects deliveries as soon as possible here it details now

with our peter all of. well what we are seeing is the early stages of talks between germany and the russian direct investment fund for the for berlin buying doses of the sputnik the vaccine these talks are confirmed by health minister yen spon on thursday. the e.u. has said that the sputnik vaccine will not be part of the joint procurement program for vaccines that system this all for $11.00 for all system of the e.u. commission buys in vaccines and then distributes them so well this is seen is germany take an independent route in which they're looking to you to buy the sputnik vaccine we've heard time and time again from angola merkel that she was keen to use the sputnik the vaccine once it gets a.m.a. approval and certainly that is what we heard from you and spawn again on thursday saying that once the european medicines agency give sputnik the the green light

germany is more than happy to use it the announcement from yen spawn that germany as a country would be in negotiations to buy sputnik became shortly after market zoraida who's the leader of the state of bavaria said that the very i had agreed what he called a preliminary deal with russia to buy 2 and a half 1000000 doses of the sputnik vaccine you know we're doing to give sputnik it's approved in europe then bavaria will receive additional vaccine doses i think it's 2500000 doses probably in july through this company that is operating in bavaria to then once again increase the additional capacity for vaccinations. while looking at the reception to the sputnik vaccine here in germany it's pretty positive you go of polling shows 55 percent of germans say they'd be more than happy to take a sputnik jab politicians and local leaders as well also on the side with getting

the sputnik the vaccine into the arsenal that germany can use against the corona virus we vaccinate vaccinate vaccinate but when we need is the quantity and that's why the german government should finally sign contracts for sputnik we should do their homework. every available vaccine has to be used russia is a great land of science and i don't have the slightest doubt that scientists there are capable of producing an effective facts ian not everybody is as positive as stefan viol who is the leader of the state of lowest saxony said that his state wouldn't be entering into any side deals like that very or done saying they would stick to the agreement that had been agreed with the european union also there was an air of caution from un spahn the health minister as he announced that these talks were going on to buy sputnik he said that never mind any debate about whether germany should buy the not could all well prove to be

a mirage because what was important was whether germany could receive doses of the job in the next 2 to 5 months because if they can't they already have deals in place that would provide germany with what they see is enough maxine's to vaccinate their population what they need is these jobs in the immediate time for in an immediate timeframe in order to get them into people's arms straight away the sputnik vaccine from its phase trials its face 3 trials receive just over 91 percent effective rate against the covert 19 vaccine that was according to statistics that were published in the lancet medical journal. well a sign of marine oversight to become the 1st nation in western europe to use sputnik movie as its primary covert vaccine the micro state which is within italy has just received another 37000 doses of the russian medicine one senior official told us why they turn to moscow. ok we

thought out of doors but we face a delayed to supply of the 1st doses of the pfizer vaccine which were covered by protocol agreements but when. the pen demick forced us to settle for other solutions on the market through cooperation with the russian direct investment fund we managed to pare new doses of this politically vaccine and start our vaccination campaign with vaccinations are now primarily being carried out with sputnik the. we had an opportunity to receive scientific proof that this is a good and reliable vaccine and this is also confirmed by our own internal research of antibodies which measures the safety and efficiency of the chair up to date we have had absolutely no problems some minor reactions we have detected to comply with standard reactions to me united nation which includes low create fever chills and so on right now we have no problems. no hopes to initially boost his

vaccination campaign and then bring it to a close by the end of may young klaver is home to around $34000.00 people most adults are lining up for the job the ministers told us that the cooperation between moscow has has been good. we are definitely happy with the vaccine and are surprised at how good our cooperation with the russian fund has been we saw the professionalism of the fun's workers and their willingness to help as well as quick supplies of the chaps it has been a very good experience of cooperation and i hope we will do it again in the course of future vaccination campaigns. of course are for to get as corona virus has some particularities because we're a small states with limited resources our health system has limited capabilities to confront the situation caused by this is where it's crucial for us to immunize our population as soon as possible when we saw there are existing vaccines on the european market is limited which complicated the start of our vaccination campaign

we decided to contact the russian direct investment fund regarding sputnik the. european medicines agency is still considering whether to approve the russian black sea a process that's been ongoing for several months already one former italian m.p. told us the regulator needs to act faster. i think that europe is the laying jewel matcher to give india out through asia. can you get a political point of view of jesus to be that you do and then that commercial point of view i refer to being that it is not so important because or even. if you were a commercial reason it would be in all of that it is a very bad i hope that a wheel a speed up but in case they do not. do that anyway our government it is odd that governments should go along and choose what they want.

so he's already fraught relations with europe are being tested to the limit by what's been branded as sofa gate european commission chief was left fuming offer she was refused a seat at top level talks in ankara and relegated to a nearby couch and italy's prime minister has now entered the fray calling turkey's president of the one a dictator are going to joins us live in studio on this bizarre story can you just remind us exactly what happened what warry if i were to teach you a lesson of new school diploma see i tell you for inviting someone important stay away from sofas and stick to the regular chairs because what i'm about to tell you about reflects the state of european diplomacy at this point and just to tell you the just to say the least it's in some way weird in some way outright absurd a massive scandal because of a chair or rather

a sofa like you said that's already been dubbed so for gait it's something that began on tuesday when 2 seeing year the most senior to be fair european officials went to turkey for talks that is the head of the european commission and the president of. the european council they were to meet the turkish leaders ship and. ended up having no chair to sit on instead what happened was she was sat at a sofa right next to the turkish foreign minister and according to diplomatic protocol he holds a lower rank and boom there you have it this is how the scandal began and now the european parliament is demanding a public investigation to get to the bottom of this but the harshest reaction came from the italian prime minister who called the law the dictator.

i absolutely do not agree with no one's behavior and i was very sorry for the humiliation the european commission president under lane had to suffer let's call them what they are dictators with whom one nonetheless has to coordinate so those are those drug of the one a dictator how did you react to all turkey and its government were clearly outraged at that almost instant the italian a massacre was asked to show up at the turkish foreign ministry for a very serious conversation well regarding the sofa gate and saying that no diplomatic protocol violated their. in turkey especially in meetings held in turkey applies to protocol that is in line with international protocol rules as well as world renowned turkish hospitality traditions always extremely accusations against turkey within the framework of the importance we give to women

and other issues. let's go back to brussels and i can tell you that what's even more ridiculous is that such high profile officials as the president of the european council had to explain themselves and why he didn't stand up for as callie in turkey and give explanations about his behavior. i was convinced that any reaction among the public could be perceived lism there was a risk of provoking an even more serious incident which would reduce the already fragile chills of having listening to relations with turkey. as we just heard the chances of good relations are already fragile so if we can just for a moment aside what was the actual purpose of this meeting this high level diplomatic meeting and i encourage rory this is what makes the situation even more absurd because in the 1st place the e.u. officials headed to turkey to try and mend the ties between the bloc and ankara

because over the past decade under president on many issues there were many stumbling blocks in relations between ankara and brussels like on the things like migration border control customs arrangements and they went there to build bridges now it seems instead of sorting out these issues they will have to sort out the sofa game all right. joining us in the studio thank you. well we can always speak to mr yourself ed him up a little analyst joining us from istanbul great to see you today thanks for coming on the program talking foreign minister is saying that this is all the emus fold speaking on thursday he said quote the protocol of the presidency met the demands of the e.u. side the seating arrangement was designed to meet the demands and suggestions wouldn't it be better if he had just perhaps said sorry well 1st of all old

school politician and protocol was extremely important to him speaking mortars seating arrangements even those where he sat where other politicians are at peace very strict attention to details like this and so this is whether the foreign ministry of the interior ministry or the defense ministry so the turkish side had already met with the protocol team for the e.u. officials that they had already already agreed upon the seating arrangement with cheryl michel's people with the you council president's team so any type of hope out that has to do with the seating arrangements is on the protocol side from what we're hearing is there's a big divide between charlotte michel and the e.u. commission head or slope underlaid and there's actually no reason to apologize because the turks have not committed any mistakes regarding the seating arrangement this is exactly the conditions that the e.u. council protocol team wanted we've even had the or were e.u.

commission head john china say there's been times where he sat on this over there's been some times where he's been number 2 in the protocol and this is completely normal that it's getting blown out of proportion i said i'm sorry it's no use if you know what you're saying basically that a mountain is being made out of a wall of a molehill here so to speak but on top of that just one second if i may turkey's record on women's rights certainly has been under scrutiny recently just last month the talk us government pulled out of the istanbul convention aimed at preventing domestic violence against women. and in protecting women's rights should turkey read about how bad this whole looks because there are some that said that perhaps out of the one was was making a job at his guests ok well turkey did pull out of them a convention but when we look at the data of violence against women or and decide turkey turkey lines of smack dab average with e.u. countries so the pressure there is not a overblown problem in turkey it's the same it is as it is in europe and the

turkish government has already said they're going to supplement the istanbul convention with new new reforms and add one is taking human reformer and human rights reforms right now so it will be unveiled very very shortly as for the optics of the whole situation yes it does look bad but the e.u. media was so quick to point the finger at our own without even sitting down and investigating what happened this was a conclude complete concoction of the e.u. media they manipulated the events to engineer a sensational story and they had the perfect bill importing the being great add on when he had nothing to do with it he doesn't decide protocol the e even turkish protocol teams decide and as the host you always acquiesce to the requests of the visiting protocol and that's the way it show michelle wanted it so turkey is not that way well it certainly did look a bit awkward showing showing that one guest sitting down the other one standing up and started out saying excuse me can i have a chat but this meeting though it followed months of diplomatic preparation

according to the council i mean how is it possible that such a i guess a small mistake or you're saying there was never a mistake made but how is it possible to offer an important meeting at the end of the day looks like nothing has been done when they want to have a serious meeting about migration and customs union expansion well unfortunately the power struggle between michele in their late and ended up playing out in turkey ended up paying the price for their little power struggle but when we look at the meeting between both sides. there was there was some progress now we have to realize that 6 months ago the e.u. was talking sanctions now they're talking about extending fines for migration management they're also talking about possibly modernizing because you disagreement so these are steps forward they've made giant steps forward but when we were talking about sanctions we're now talking about more positive things keeping the agenda positive we're talking about more carrots less sticks so it was

a step in the right direction but unfortunately it got overshadowed by this whole so we gave it their political analyst joining us here in our international we appreciate your time and your insight thank you very much. news coming out of the u.k. today the husband of queen elizabeth the 2nd prince philip has passed away at the age of 99 just 2 months short of his son. people have been gathering outside windsor castle the royal residence where prince philip died this morning 3 weeks after being discharged from hospital and duke of edinburgh had undergone treatment for an infection procedure although the exact cause of death has not been disclosed a people have been leaving flowers at the cost of that's buckingham palace right there earlier we showed you windsor castle meanwhile tributes flowing in from all around the world president vladimir putin sent a telegram to queen elizabeth expressing his deep condolences over the passing of her husband philip had been the queen's partner since 1947 and is the longest

serving consort in the country's history the prince retired from royal duties 4 years ago and had been suffering from failing health the role of family has released a statement saying that philip died peacefully this morning at windsor castle in england. well a new 3 man crew has arrived at the international space station a soyuz rocket doctor a few hours ago after a flight from the baikonur cosmodrome in kazakhstan to russians all in the. cosmos and the american mark vande hei of nasa now they've all safely arrived on the orbiting space station and during that time there they'll be overseeing the year why a full of a new lab module called science the soyuz spacecraft that sent the trio to space was named after the 1st human in space yuri gagarin analyses constantine's rushkoff was at the launch site as the crew took off. you can't throw out your foot on the water if that means tad sobber injuries or the firing and the rocket is going to do

things you're. going to get if you're. wow i mean we had amazing sight to see and everyone here at this viewing area are thrilled to see the rugged heading into space but i got to tell you something there are a new 3 people on earth there are more a focus than the crew on board that saw use rocket because the 1st 10 minutes after takeoff are considered to be the most dangerous of their entire 6 or even 10 month stay in space now let me tell you few words about the crew so this time we have 2 russian cosmonauts 11 to be scanned peter do broth and then one american astronaut mark bundy hey despite investing heavily in space x.'s dragon program the united

states and nasa are still dependent on russia and pays the country to sand their astronauts into space earlier today they follow the same traditional route that each cosmina takes while ed baikonur 1st they left the hotel to the famous soviet song usually this is a very emotional moment because this is when family members get to say their final goodbyes to of the cosmos before they leave our planet but these time they were not even allowed to come to the cause of a drone because of the pandemic and for the 1st time in history the traditional press conference with the crewmembers was held without us without media presence online only also because of the safety reasons but we were managed to pass our questions to the crew members anyway and. from one hand i very much like a family's from relatives and friends to be here to at least can. with them through the glass so they could see our lives on the other hand the fact they're not here

makes me a little relieved because the situation is still difficult everywhere and i would not want to risk that because we can see florida do a job without worrying that something happened to them here. we are all having to deal with the challenges associated with. i just feel very fortunate that i have loved ones like my family and friends even though they can't be here they're still able to communicate with me and share their support both main and backup crews were vaccinated in advance of the american stigma dearness shots while the russians. bottom line is that at this point no one wants to lead covert which has cost a lot of trouble on earth and to space now of course this launch comes at the 60th anniversary of yuri gagarin's flight which made him 1st ever human in space and this date april 12th is going to be widely celebrated across russia anyway you know this place baikonur where yuri gagarin journey started is by far the most the bast

place to feel this connection with the history of space exploration which as you just saw is still unfolding. now the rocket took off from the same side from where the so if you had cosmonaut yuri gagarin made history on the morning of the 12th of april 961 his vostok one craft blasted off and circled the earth for 108 minutes. or an instant global fame and 6 decades later his name and does live. with as always one face the last face the cosmonauts see before they blast off whether during this time or today and we spoke to your remission a lot specialist about how it all. i'm head of department of the list of transport launch equipment to buy i can offer 12 years now the 1st 4 years i was an engineer on the launch team i took part in many crew launches when i started working with the cosmonauts they seem to be more nervous than everyone else worrying that everything went world even after 12 years the nervousness is still

there it never goes away the duty of care is always there but it's not so apparent with time because you become more experienced and you know what to do and how to approach situations as for the cosmonauts they're always in good mood they're always smiling especially if there are foreigners among the crew you always passes with jokes and laughter no panic of the operations crew the last people to walk the cosmonauts from ground 0 to the spacecraft and wave them goodbye because men also in a good way because they've been honored to travel to space and carry out experiments serving our country. the latest a flight to the i.r.s. continues an enduring relationship between the world's leading space powers russia and the united states which has gone on regardless of political differences we heard from ken and by our socks a former nasa astronaut he gave us his views on that cooperation and that of the good guy or an anniversary. we have a great working relationship with our russian counterparts we love working with

them we've worked together for a long time now we know each other's weaknesses we know each other's strengths you know and just like in any any friendship sometimes you don't agree about things that happened and and then we have this great way of working through those types of disagreements we talk to each other we try to convince each other one way or the other and we find a good resolution to the problem. i'm so proud to have been able to be here in kazakhstan and see the launch pad were a year you could garden launched it was a wonderful experience you know that 1st step must have been a fairy fairy heart i can just imagine but it's also hard to take next steps right sometimes on a journey it's the most important step to starting but then it's hard to do each step after step after step after step and we're in that process now and it's great to have partners to work with as we support each other as we keep each other going down the road so that we can go further and further out into space together. as we

gear up for the historic anniversary of the 1st spaceflight we'll have special coverage for you over the coming days.