so join us in the. headlines this hour the defense minister. to. military exercises in the country. the claims from. war. corruption as a reporter appeals that over 20 percent of the money spent on the. politician .

also this hour. call for the. police force. george floyd. evening here on. international. law exercises in crimea more than 40 warships 1200 vehicles and 10000 soldiers all took part in the.

russian defense minister sergei should go wraps up military drills in crimea only once they were at least sent 1000 ground and marine troops to fort. stewart today the armed forces have successfully completed complex drools will defending russia's souls and. i believe that the aims of this chick have been fully cherry don't know and notice that the existence of no foundation.

for moscow this was business as usual and now that's been wrapped up all the troops and their military equipment are headed back to their permanent bases a pretty anticlimactic ending to all the hype over its so-called russian aggression that we've been hearing about for the best few weeks right in case you missed it here's a little sampling of what's been said on that front as a flate tensions are rising in ukraine as russia continues to ramp up its military force on the border between the 2 countries a pentagon spokesman has called the deployment of russian troops deeply concerning edging moscow to terrify its intentions ukraine is seeking international support against russia's military buildup along its borders in that direction just a few miles the russian border and beyond that that is where the pentagon says more than 40000 russian troops are now massing the ukrainian government why says i the exercise was held a head of nato as military drills near. russia's borders called defender of

twenty's once you one this region is facing increased military activity for many too including reconnaissance operations and massive preparatory activities the grand plan for april is to hold more than $4000.00 various exercises in all of russia's military districts over almost all of the country's time zones or among koester of artsy crimea. a conservative government in the u.k. is fending off corruption claims over the way it dished out covert emergency funding a new report shows that many contracts were awarded to companies with direct political connections and no track record of supplying relevant goods or even services this report in london with artie's in saudi. well this is really blown the lid off the contracting and tendering processes that place when of course the pandemic was at its peak in government spending to get people in place as personal protective

equipment and other vital equipment to fight the pandemic when all of that was going on contracts were being handed out and there are accusations in this report of contracts being handed out to those with the right political connections and concerns even being raised about the emergence of a so-called vi p. lane that fast tracked offers of contracts from companies who had been directly approved from politicians or lords and others and according to the report all of these processes raising a number of red flags it is very surprising for the u.k. government prioritise recommendations from politicians given in most of the areas of economic activity this type of association raises red flags and they are not known for their expertise and procuring medical equipment what is even more surprising is that it did not engage professionals such as the british medical association and the royal college of nursing now the focus of this report centers

around almost a 1000 contracts awarded between february and november of last year totaling 18000000000 and there's also been accusations of a lack of transparency and a lack of accountability with public bodies less than forthcoming with information about these contracts public bodies across the u.k. failed to comply with their legal obligations to provide timely access to information on contracts and all of these contracts and all of this focus on political connections the lid of which has been blown off by revelations that former prime minister david cameron was attempting to lobby the government during the pandemic on behalf of a company called green silk capital and he had reached out to the. chancellor and also the health secretary that hancock all of whom have denied any wrong doing but investigations are going on into the role that politicians play when it comes

to contracting and many here in the u.k. worried about what impact this will have on britain's role on the global stage on britain's image on the global stage particularly when they come to lecturing other countries about corruption and staying with britain border guards say around $100.00 people a day are arriving in the country with fake covert certificates potentially bringing in new variants over the virus undetected picking up the story in london kate partridge. in the u.k. cases of coronavirus and cope with 19 deaths before that following the look of the vaccine rollout but there are concerns this progress could be spot puts by the variance of the disease being brought into the country by people using fake coded negatives certificates foreign holiday travel both leaving and entering the u.k. is bound but business travels allowed the government website tells travelers to the u.k. before they set out they must provide a passenger locator for at proof of

a negative coronavirus test taken within the 3 days before arrival this could be a printed documents an e-mail or text message failure to show it could mean no travel or 500 pounds fine on arrival the traveler must ensure the test meets the right standards and the results must be in english french or spanish with personal information matching the travel documents and the tests provide us contact details but border immigration and customs staff say these documents are very easy to forge and in many cases offices have no way of checking whether they're genuine it's predominantly taken on trust we do get a 100 or more and do fake coverage certificates that we catch while the e used police agency europol has already warned travelers to be aware of all denies to criminal gangs selling fake coded negatives certificates these have been found at british french and spanish airports online and in the netherlands via mobile messaging apps for as much as $300.00 euros each as long as travel restrictions

remain in place due to the pandemic it is very likely that criminals will seize the opportunity of producing and selling fake covert 900 tests of recruits given the widespread technological means available in the form of high quality printers and different software fraudsters are able to produce high quality counterfeits forged or fake documents and talk to 20000 people entering the u.k. every. they most are poor yes who are in the large group of exam jobs and people including children under 11 who don't need to take a test which raises the question of whether the certificate system or any passport scheme could work in siri or in practice clearly there are challenges around international travel you know you have to look across the continent and see the rise in case rates in many of our nearest neighbors it has been in the past the case that those rising infection rates have seen their way through to the u.k.

we're hopeful that that won't happen this time around because of our progress with the vaccine and so on but we do need to be cautious about that but the big worry about fake certificates is letting people into the u.k. he was carrying you could variance like those from india south africa and brazil which could be more resistant to antibodies this would diminish the impact of the u.k.'s vaccination program and thought the economic upturn then just one forged document costing a few 100 pounds could cost thousands of lives and millions in lost revenue kate partridge r.t. london. france meanwhile wants to be europe's 1st state to enforce passports a move heavily criticized by rights campaigners as discriminating against those who don't want an injection at the minister's insist it's all about your freedom. city did this summer i hope we will reclaim our freedom thanks to the vaccination restraint and this digital certification the employment of passports will list

people's inoculation day for immunity status and will be trialed on internal flights this week officials hope to expand their use across europe within the coming weeks we understand it shops and restaurants will be exempt we spoke to political analyst nicholas markovitch who thinks the scheme simply won't work without public support. people are jittery with the talking about putting their personal information on an app which is managed by the government again if people were confident that people meant that the people at the head of france to date were concerned by the health of the citizens and that was paramount to them and that was their primary concern that i think they would be ok but people see that there are huge interest personal interest big pharmacy group interest there's a lot of these interests with a lot of people think are more important than the interest of the citizens and the safety of the citizen so as long as people will be skeptical about the real intentions of the government and what this app is the 1st day or 2 then i think

there's going to be a have a hard time going through after a moment if it's an obligation to have this app to travel is going to be complicated because some people will really feel forced to take the ad because they need to they need to see family relatives or even to work so it's going to create a lot of frustration and we risk having some sort of 2 way society with the fast track for those who got the vaccine or who go to p.c.r. test regularly and those who don't have it and who have less liberties than the 1st and so i think this is going to create a lot of confusion and. tension within the french society. the conviction of former officer derek chauvet for the murder of george freud has only fired up black lives mount hood demonstrators they poured back out on the streets again saying the police shooting of a black teenage girl on the day of the verdict just goes to show a total lack of progress. i. ah the officers claimed they were justified in shooting the 16 year old but they

have launched a probe however protesters have run out of patience calling on the police to be defended and denouncing. donald quarter reports on those rallies and how they've been encouraged and inflamed by the us democratic. the verdict guilty but the mass is far from satisfied it wasn't long before celebration over show evidence faith once more turned into anger. don't want you here. don't want your area. or. progressive's are paying a lot of lip service to it's not justice and i'll explain to you right it's not justice. it's not justice because justice is george floyd going home tonight to be with this family this is but a miniscule step on the path to justice next tops independent agency to investigate

police misuse of force criminalized violence against protesters dimeter eyes police departments disband and deconstruct field police departments some are taking a more sentimental approach making sure everyone knows the death of their new martyr makes them very sad thank you. for sacrificing your life for your name will always be synonymous with death also spoke to john and george and those jurors you don't know if you get to change the world. you took over this afternoon. he did change the rules since the campaign trail biden has spoken with the victim's family multiple times assuring them that his administration was on the side of justice even appeared to border on justifying the pressure that activists and vandals were putting on the court process for jury who heard the evidence carried out their civic duty in the midst of extraordinary moment under

extraordinary pressure. for so many. it feels like it took all of that. for the judicial system to deliver a just just basic countability naturally the administration's pandering to police protesters has radicalized the republican party and the opposite direction so much so that it's now illegal for drivers to run over road blocking protesters in the red state of florida we saw really unprecedented disorder and rioting throughout the summer of 2020 and we said that's not going to happen here in the state of florida and we wanted to make sure that we were able to protect the people of our great state people's businesses and property and it is the strongest anti writing pro a law enforcement piece of legislation in the country one big verdict on a whole lot of unsolved problems and the 2 ruling parties at each other's throats tragedies like the recent police shooting of

a 16 year old black teenager in columbus ohio just continue to pile up with neither side ready to come to a compromise the american political structure of the constitutional structure is so antiquated and so shot through with undemocratic practices and. bias that it would take a top to bottom thorough political structural reform in order to put america on a new racial footing and i don't see it happening any time soon but short of that there will be no progress whatsoever i am absolutely convinced. the president of iran has said u.s. sanctions are preventing his country from receiving covert vaccines and potentially putting millions of lives at risk to iran the sign the contract for almost 17000000 vaccine doses through the w h o's kovac scheme back in january but 3 months on only a tiny fraction of those have been delivered at

a time when cofa death so soaring president who on me says that's entirely down to the trade restrictions being enforced by america. it's our lives. there were no sanctions we would be getting deliveries through the scheme and today millions of people could get the vax and i would like oh people to clearly realize that this is a crime by washington well this comes amid reports of cautious progress the talks in vienna on reviving the iran nuclear deal by administration wants to revive the pact which previously gave iran sanctions relief in exchange for a scaling back of its nuclear energy program however as a key sticking point washington wants iran to act 1st and limit its uranium enrichment before sign sions can be lifted while iran says the u.s. which left the pact unilaterally under trumped needs to take the 1st step. of definitive policy as stated by the supreme leader is that we demand the lifting

of all sanctions which violate the nuclear deal and once the cancellation has been verified we will return to compliance with our commitments there is no such thing as a guarantee and i think we have made that clear to iran that it's not something that the u.s. can or will give. delve deeper into this we are joined by professor saeed mohammad marandi of the university of tehran good to see you today thanks for joining us here on r t as you heard just there on is ultimately blaming you blaming the u.s. for the drastic situation with the covert numbers in the country essentially saying that u.s. sanctions against iran are resulting in the loss of lives of everyday iranians does that does that sound accurate to you professor. well it's worse than that what the united states has done since day one of covert 19 was that it blocked iran from using the international financial sector even

worse even the more effectively than it did before covert 19 in other words the united states introduced new sanctions to block iran's access to the international financial sector after a covert 1000 and that basically blocked iran from importing test kits. importing. all sorts of hospital supplies in order to combat covert 19 ventilators masks at that time at the beginning if you recall there was a shortage of masks so you couldn't even purchase them now underbite in the united states continues to pursue the same policy and iran cannot use the international banking sector in order to purchase the goods that it needs and that's where things stand with now that's why we have a shortage of vaccines because iran can't transfer the money and the united states is blocking it professor marandi how crucial is the w h o's kovacs scheme for iran the government also has supply deals of course in

place with russia and china. well russia and china have been very helpful in this regard and the iranians are work cooperate with them to import vaccines from both countries but the problem is of course with the the the fact that the iranians can't use the international financial sector and therefore other vaccines are completely unavailable to iran and the iranian backed scene program has been delayed for months as a result not only that but iran is also developing its own vaccine and which will be coming out in a few weeks but the problem with that was that it was also delayed because they couldn't import the necessary equipment to develop the vaccine to mass produce the vaccine because of the sanctions so if if they were if there were no sanctions the iranian vaccine would have already been on the market we would have had millions of

vaccines already imported to meet the needs of ordinary people but the americans than and the europeans have been using this as a weapon to run against iran and it's not just that iranian assets are blocked across the globe in the south koreans have helped $78000000000.00 of iranian money at the orders of the united states when the iranians need it in order to create a greater social support network so people don't have to go to work but because iran does not have access to its money people have to go to work and therefore. interaction among people social distancing distancing doesn't work as it should as a result of more people die so the europeans and the americans are killing iranians . iran's covert numbers they've been hitting worrying highs in recent weeks the very same time though iran is back at the negotiation table with its professional partners trying to reset cure the nuclear deal that dropped out of shouldn't the u.s.

and its allies be interested in helping iran at this point because now seems like an ideal opportunity to negotiate covert help amid the nuclear deal talks. well you run doesn't need their help iran wants them to stop trying to harm iranians just like the united states and the europeans have been and the canadians and have been helping saudi arabia to create genocide in yemen the destruction of libya the destruction of syria supporting extremists in syria venezuela cuba i mean we know that the europeans and americans are not going to help anyone but the iranians are saying that if you want us to abide by our side of the bargain at the with regards to the nuclear deal you have to put aside the sanctions but even at the negotiating table the americans don't want to do so they want to keep the sanctions the sanctions that were in post on iran after the nuclear deal was signed

for example the americans want to keep the sanctions on the iranian central bank which is key for iran to be able to access the international financial sector so what biden wants to do is he wants to give you a round bits and pieces something which obama did and take. you know make concessions from iran the iranians are saying that's not acceptable obama he violated the deal when iran abided by the deal trump of course toward the deal now you run a saying to biden if you want the deal to be implemented you have to implement yourself in full and then will implemented the united states has damaged the iranian economy through violating the deal hundreds of billions of dollars perhaps so the least that they could do is abide by their commitments professor saeed mohammad marandi of the university of tehran joining us live here on r.t. international we appreciate your time today thank you very much for joining us thank you. thank you thank you. nuclear

annihilation isn't something most people would like to contemplate unless you're of course us to teach it command that is they've actually casually tweeted that it could have very well. the spectrum of conflict today is neither we're not predictable we must account for the possibility of conflict leading to conditions which could very rapidly drive an adversary to consider nuclear use is the least bad option the u.s. strategic command is responsible for safeguarding america's nuclear arsenal and that tweet came ahead of the agency's annual posture statement informing congress of its work and plans they added the u.s. is facing quote 2 nuclear capable strategic period versus areas at the same time in other words russia and china but the notion that atomic armageddon is just another option on the table is not going down well on social media what does this mean did this need to between. least bad option it would just be letting

the enemy take your chicken nuggets and not new can the world only insane people would consider a nuclear conflict a clear indication that those who have the power positions in this country are not mentally fit to have this responsibility former pentagon security analyst michael maloof told us such nuclear statements are unacceptable. it's an unfortunate thing that to treat it so blithely leica. as a as a means of trying to scare off adversaries but it's scaring people and it's not meant to be a it's not a pleasant subject and i think there it's a scare tactic on the part of strategic command to to put something like this and i think that it's just just better to not try to create unnecessary hysteria at a time when tensions are already high that was the whole idea of arms control was to try and minimize the potential danger of the use of any nuclear weapons whether

such whether strategic or tactical and unfortunately we're treating the use of nuclear weapons as as the strategic command statement said in a rather bliley way and it's something that is is should not be treated in such a cavalier dismissive way it's a very serious problem. has reportedly planning to use celebrities to entice the public into getting the astra zeneca covert shot but what it was shot at the whiskey found out. celebrity power could be about to be hollowness for its most bizarre campaign to date helping to convince people to have the astra zeneca job questions over its possible links to red blood clots and its effectiveness have essentially made it roll the undesirable for some leaving the french leadership scratching its head and wondering how to make it more appealing

we have had difficulties convincing people on astra zeneca we must think about communication and our ability to convince if we want the vaccination campaign to improve though the president to may have being part of that given his previous speed use the vaccine the real problem with astra zeneca is that it doesn't work the way we were expecting it to the problem is so bad that in the city of nice a covert vaccination center got to be closed over the weekend when only 58 people turned up despite some 4000 doses of astra zeneca. grabs so how to change people's mornings that's where those celebs come in it's reported the government is musing full blown communication campaign that would be headed by famous people because in

a crisis that's who you trust right. celebrities that people like cos i don't think they have more knowledge than the specialists. if it's a celebrity who says that i don't care we don't know what influenced them to do it with social media it's too easy for people to be persuaded of anything. i will not get vaccinated because some famous person tells me to it's like they're telling me jump for breach i'm not going to do that. we know that these a product placements and it turns out that they themselves have not been vaccinated it might influence people but i personally rely more on medical expertise and scientific reports fears over the link to the rare blood clots from vaccines isn't confined to front so either in sweden several regions of reported cases of people i don't quote refusing to have the extra zeneca joab in my department we had planned for a 150 patients aged over $65.00 with diabetes who were to be vaccinated there were

20 who canceled ahead of time and 7 who left once they found out which vaccine they would get one said i don't want to die and left immediately worse still is that those refusals all resulting in vaccines being thrown away and all of this is taking place as the european medicines agency the world health organization and even sweden's public health authority are continuing to stress that the benefits of the vaccine for outweigh any risks so why are people still shelling it probably because of the side effects people don't believe in science and the more i think it's. the social media these discussions going on the social media because of fears bad reputation in other countries that have decided not to take

the risk a tool since that link with rare blood clots was raised the rollout of astra zeneca remains suspended in countries like norway and. denmark but as countries struggle to convince citizens that the short is safe to use the e.u. itself has admitted that they may not be renewing its contract which begs the question why bother convincing people i told joe let's even ski azzi place thanks for sharing your time with us here at r.t. international been a pleasure having you with us today the program returns in half an hour's time with my colleagues. hope you can join us then.