a cooper due to mobile, cham would play that supports in with the business with should not see what the key emotional button is with . ah, european nations are hit by rep for daily cove with not buzz wild protests continue against harsh new restrictions on in the stories that shaped the week. you must give us the guarantees it is you and you must do it immediately and to mark the shortest later that it won't move. basis closer to russia. as the president feels questions on global affairs and his annual media briefing on today mark's

30 years since the official breakup of the soviet union. we look back at those historic events and how they shape monta and russia, a bon 10 pm here in moscow. you've joined us with a weekly on our t where we recap the big headlines of the past 7 days. and one thing that is still, of course, everyone is talking about is 5 that the christmas season has been overshadowed by a record cope with surge in europe with france, it's now the u. k. registering new highs in daily infections. ortiz pool. a slayer has more we have a huge surge ours cove cases, new cases happening in a number of european countries. if we start off with france on saturday,

france recorded a record high new number of cases for the 3rd consecutive day reporting, a 104611 cases. now, despite those people took to the streets and protest, primarily against than a set of necessity of carrying a health pass, which is needed to enter all public spaces and also for children to be vaccinated. on monday, the french president emanuel cron will discuss with a few members of his cabinet, new measures to counter the coven. 19 pandemic. particularly in light of the new variant army con, which we know is very contagious. it is expected that the president will announce that in order to get a health pass people in france, one are have to agree in principle to accepting a booster 3 months after their initial vaccination. if we move across to italy, here to we have record numbers for the 2nd consecutive day on friday, italy reporting 50599 new cases. italy is also reporting

the 2nd highest number of deaths because of covered in europe after the united kingdom, with some 141 new depths reported now. and then if we move across to the united kingdom here on friday, we had another record. hi, a 122186 new cases being reported. largely because of this highly contagious on the con variant. now the local government in the u. k, is losing political points with boris johnson's popularity rating. it has taken a snow dive and has hit record, learned december of some 23 percent. and that is largely because of his poor dealings with the co. 19 pandemic, and a number of scandals here in germany. the health authorities have come forward and admitted that they are no longer tracing contacts of people who have court covert.

in other words, there's no comprehensive follow up regarding people infected and who they coming into contact with. take less than many germans believe that they do not have to be quarantined as a contact person because they are vaccinated. but that is not true. now the society here in germany is divided on christmas day. you had thousands of people who turned out to protest against vaccinations and that was in the gym and city of dust off. but then again, on the same day, you had people waiting in long queues in potsdam waiting to receive a vaccination. so the coven 19 pandemic remaining as controversial and as alarming as ever. nato has offered to hold talks with russia on january, the 12th. after months of tensions between the 2 sides. now the criminal has

responded saying it's considering the proposal. moscow's top priority is to stop nato's eastern expansion on western military involvement in ukraine. and those issues were addressed by president putin this week during his traditional and of you q and a with the media. ah, no, she used to will. directions do not depend on negotiations, they will depend on unconditional compliance with russia's security today. and in the future, we medi clear native further movement to the east is unacceptable, was not clear about it away. the ones who deploy missiles next, the united states know that the united states who brought their missiles next to our home, already on our doorstep, is it an excessive demand? no more attack systems near our home. is there something unusual about this yet? no, we're doing. we're not an inch towards the east. we were told in the 19 ninety's and what they fooled us. they are outrageously deceived,

of 5 ways of nato expansion. and now they say, will have ukraine as well. yeah, usually if i take the traditional approach, that is a woman is a woman, a man is a man, a mother is a mother, a father is a father or she is not all the peoples of the russian federation have a certain internal moral protection against such obscure and to them, let them in the west do whatever they want borrowed for faith. and while this must be fought, not my direct instructions and shouts, but by the support of uh, traditional values of them. so it is necessary 1st of all, to rely on the dates or of the investigation. 17 criminal cases have been initiated under under investigation. over a 1000 people dismissed and their criminal cases opened against the law. i assure you, there's not a single investigator interested in any case. this is why we have divided the investigative committee and the prosecutor's office. there problem. yes, there is

a problem. we need to work with it. and we're learn a conscientious, fully fledged investigation of those crimes. and these are clearly the crimes that have been committed. we need to bring it to an end so that everyone understands the punishment for these offences is inevitable ah, of no will. long time ago i spoke with one the form you as president guests with whom he told me the boy, cuz the olympics in los angeles in moscow were big mistakes, including on the side of the united states. and united states keeps on making them again, why the diplomatic and political boycotts of china? they tried to hold back the elements of china. there are no other motives. ah, no, these very city. i mean, we need to be realistic. the forces that appeared at the helm of afghanistan are trying to have different ethnic groups in the countries leadership. and this alone can create conditions for hope, for stabilization in afghanistan. bullshit do now to help the people of afghanistan . and 1st of all, it should be done by the countries that created such severe damage to the afghan

economy and people. those were there for 20 years, destroying the economy should be the 1st to help on our side. we'll do everything depending on us. on another topic that was raised natural gas, europe was hit by rattling prices this week, meaning higher bells and millions of households. some in the last a pointing the finger at moscow saying that it's withholding gas. but president putin gave his explanation for the crisis. the will to him it with both of them with they are lying to us there confusing every one promise shipping the entire volume requested by the counter agents. in accordance with the existing contract, we're saying we must not destroy long term contracts, but know that the european commission, we must use more with the market, will regulated. well, here's how it regulates it. we have 2000 dollars, 1000 cubic meters. you're welcome. the issue of gas, it's pretty clear that, you know, russia has nothing to do with that. a he said that gas from one is one of the few companies in the world that has increased its supplies to europe. whereas,

for example, the american suppliers have diverted gas from the liquefied natural gas from the european market toys, the markets where they can make more money. russia hasn't done that, it increased it supplies to germany, for example, by 10 percent. but that's not enough. i'm in and the russia is always whenever there is any issue, any contentious issue or even a domestic problem since the european, the west in general. i in the habit of sort of resurrecting russia as this year crow to, you know, hang all the possible problems on the, you know, you can be irritated by that. but after a certain amount of families with attention and i think this is it from, from you, this is a good moment. do you think we boring, you know, like we were to narrow down every problem in the world onto the rushes was launching or even with a mining a giant in the us state of florida as being accused of polluting waterways with

cancer, causing chemicals. now to theme of a new documentary, which will be airing on our t to more in the meantime, won't show you a short preview. i was diagnosed with cancer in 2009 when the doctors told me the cancer was incurable. i knew i had to make a change, so i decided to travel to one of the most toxic places in america. florida went to florida biggest industries and best kept secrets is phosphoric, one in the biggest layer is $85000000000.00 industry. is mosaic, and i there are reports of millions of gallons of contaminated water now flowing into the florida aqua floor. a chronic. i don't want to hear that word posting, but that's what it is. i'm in 2013. my whole, our family dog, my brother was 21 years old, myself and my father were all a black

hole and the good place. right? yeah, yeah. maybe they'll actually we're, that far hill is more important than for joining us. why now is the creator of talk commentary filmmaker, eric crown eric could to help you on the 1st thing i want to ask you. obviously this is a document that could have very wide spread read repercussions. what prompted you to stop this investigation? fuss pace. you know, as i was traveling around the world, doing a lot of direct action conservation work, i started to see that right in my own back yard. we had these issues where we were questioning children in, in a way that is actually regulated and allowed. so, you know, as soon as i saw that, i thought this is something we can stop and if he's environmental cancers,

if we're able to stop them, it's our obligation to investigate and stop them from continuing. so that's really what drew me down there. you know, i just don't want anybody to go through to what i've been through or what other people that i know that have been through cancer have to face. and like i said, you know, these are not cancers that are, that are genetic and they're not cancer. is that are necessary or, you know, have to be battled in any way. these are simply things we can turn the, the spigot off and stop these environmental cancers. and i think it's our obligation to do that. i think most people would agree with you. absolutely. the one thing i do want to pick up on is you paid quite a shocking statistic when i was reading about that the cancer rate and bone valley and florida is 6 times higher than the national average. i mean, how you arrive at that figure because from my understanding the mining company is costing down over that. yes, you know, it's been very difficult. it's been a bit of a challenge. they have one interesting thing is they're allowed to do their own

testing. so they simply do their own tests and then provide the results to the state. so there is no oversight on this entire industry stay wide. and that is where we're finding the difficulties. you know, i was able to come up with it by going through the public records of the different counties that have mining and mining areas and they're all there liter cause of death. cancer and their rates were extremely higher than usual. i also checked with the national cancer institute database and a few other few other areas to see. and unfortunately, the areas that are around here, these mines do have higher rates of cancer. ready and we were able to talk to a lot of the families that have been affected generationally by this issue as well . or previous you'll see it over cancer causing, thought lives is have been successful. probably the biggest one so far as been games. my son that were $1000000000.00 payouts for that. do you think that the

residence of value for example have a strong legal case? did you get any sense that they were preparing some kind of new suit against the company? you know, i think they've been trying for a long time now to find a legal way to kind of hobble the amount of toxins that this company is allowed to put into the groundwater. now one of the biggest issues is that they currently are allowed to dump over 100000000 gallons of cancer causing toxins into the groundwater which then go into the aquifer and it goes into the rivers and everybody that takes drinking water from these rivers. they're not able to remove these cancer causing toxins that include heavy metals, radium 2 to 6, and a few other issues that we found when we did our own water testing. so i think we've been trying for awhile to, to do it legally. one thing we find is that a lot of the doctors are afraid to connect cancer and environmental issues. part of it is the narrow scope of the different definition of

a cancer class. certainly, the doctors are allowed to use as well as where it is a problem being that this is a big industry and their own by actually mosaic is owned by cargill, which is one of the largest private companies in the world. so we have in a situation where doctors are not making that connection and as soon as they do the company will be, i think, liable for a lot of these illnesses that are causing. i wasn't able to find one study ever and that was done by one doctor at florida state university. and once he submitted his report, it was taken and show. and when i reached out to him, emailed me within a minute. and so there's no way i can help him. so, you know, i, i find that the doctors and the medical community down there are afraid to maintain what they have. and they're afraid to cross that line and cross that boundary. as mosaics technicals are, are reaching where it is biggest. why do want to ask you talk about me. thanks tentacles. i mean, well you have to do is

a simple kind of online such phosphate fine, morning and camp sites. and you'll find articles that go back as far as the 1980s. so it's clear that even if the dots have been directly connected, the association is that and with have been known for a long time. so why does the problem persist? is it just people scared to speak out? is it the fact that the company is perhaps silencing people? i mean, i don't know. what did you discover? you know, i spoke to a lot of people that had been silenced by them by mosaic directly. as a matter of fact, one person has spoke, i've recently had a gag order placed on them where they cannot speak publicly about most it, which i just thought was crazy. actually, the gag order said you're not allowed to speak about music on facebook and for somebody to lose the 1st amendment, right, like that. that shows a lot of influence in the area. you know, we find that mosaic goes through and they kind of gain the favor of a lot of people by putting a lot of money into the local communities. but at the same time they're,

they're presenting this nice picture while they're also getting everybody sick at the same time. you know, and it was, it was maddening for me because we did find cancer causing chemicals, and it was proven in the movie. we even found one of their outfalls had, there's a level that they're not supposed to go over and we found that level, we tested the water of radiation. so we're finding that there is, there's just, again, there's no oversight into this type of an industry. and they kind of run rough shot over everybody in the local area. and there are a lot of good local groups trying to fight. you know, they just are always silent on a big problem too. with a lot of times the local press, the silence. we found that to be the case by putting this movie out there was only a few parts of the press that would even be willing to speak about this topic. so, you know, we find, i think there's a lot of fear because there's a fortune 500 company and they're so big. but, you know, just a small group of concerned residents that had to want everything about mining

because they kept seeing their families getting sick. these are the people that have stood up and back and it is david and goliath, storage answer the big picture head that we're being told, for example, to, to drink top pool to save on plastics too, because it's environmentally friendly. but stories like this really can terrify people because it seems that actually we don't really know what's going into the water that we're drinking. do you think that, that we need to revise the advice that we're giving to people that need to be more tests before we give out that kind of pretty blanket advice out? that's a great question. you know, how can people tend to protect themselves because a lot of people will try to yeah, get bottled water or get a reverse osmosis filter which is very expensive and the expense should not be on the resident. we should be stopping this at the source and, you know, trying to solve it down the down, the stream is not going to ever ever work and they have to stop it at the source is

one at one thing that a resident brought up to me and this person had gotten cancer history just by moving there was that when they take shower, there is no protection because you have all the water coming in from the hype and your skin is the largest organ on the body. and your course open up and take it in . so what we need is a better way to keep these industries responsible and transparent so that we know what kind of boxes we're facing and force them to just put the bill and to take care of those toxins. before they're allowed to release anything back into the environment. why can i think for a lot of people when i say that we're very grateful that people like you and of course, the residence of areas that are suffering all speaking out and doing something. and wrapping up this topic so that we have a general knowledge about it that was a filmmaker or a crown. thank you so much for speaking to us course. just remind you can watch eric's documentary for space on the 27th and 28th of december right here on our t while still had the sour it is exactly thought yes,

since the u. s. a saw officially ceased to exist, will be reliving that historical turning point official. ah ah ah ah.

ah, what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy confrontation, let it be an arms. race is often very dramatic. development. only personally, i'm going to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successfully, very difficult time. time to sit down and talk ah, welcome back. now today marks the 30th the ussr was formally dissolved, the union was replaced by 15 independent states among them. russia, next up parties were on gazda, takes a look back, what's changed since the famous soviet fargo. the kremlin, was lowered for the very last time. 30 years ago, humanity witness the spectacle,

the dramatically changed the course of history. the spectacular overnight collapse of the ussr sulu lucrative as a result of a newly formed situation. creation of the commonwealth of independent states. i seize my activities in the post of the ussr president, to show, so uniqueness, ah, here enough, 300000000 people woke up with a new nationality. their homeland gone race that the stroke of the pet. and it began with the perestroika, a radical rethinking of soviet mentality, identity and ideology. we must begin 1st by restructuring our thinking on psychology, organizationally in the style and ways working. i would say frankly though we do

not restructure ourselves and i'm deeply convinced of this, that we will not rebuild economy or social life. but perestroika proved too much too sudden, too intense to unpredictable where the intent was evolution. the result was revolution, nationalism reared up with frightful speed. across the u. s. a saw a leads and opportunities in various republics, clamored for power and independence. the result was climactic. the u. s. a sorry says in his existence as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality. it was the dawn of a new age. that was pessimism, but there was also optimism what marvels could piece bring. a great empire nicholas superpower, was split into independent countries, which got the chance to cooperate with each other as closely as they wanted, without any bloodshed. and so began a flood of cultural exchange,

as western ideas rolled and roiled across the former ussr. ah . ringback ringback ringback ringback ringback ringback ringback ringback ringback ringback hundreds of millions of people have thrown off communism dictatorship or apartheid former adversaries. now cooperate with us in diplomacy and global problem solving. reality, however, turned out to be far uglier than the propaganda post as will mainstream media promised the guiding hand of the communist party. god, old and buried hatreds, re ignited, and neighbors turned on each other. ah,

it wasn't just war and uncountable. debts had was misery, pure and simple economic social healthcare collapse. the rise of transnational mafias and organized crime fraud and corruption sisted across the former soviet union. ah . ringback ah, a traumatized, the people undoubtedly the misery and the hopelessness of the 90s,

they yearned for stability. not for communism, no, nor the u. s. sr, but for a semblance of order and whatever his the tractors might have to say about putin. he gave the russians stability. agatha, unfortunately, are common fatherland. the soviet union dissolved. you could, as you know, the core of this common states is historical. russia, the russian federation nursery, which is you know, last almost office industrial potential, her half of its corner, mara, he the same share of its population as residential concert, its territory. what can we do about this noun? i've already said the restoring the soviet union would be pointless and responsible for many reasons which is different and not even desirable because only selina, which make sense. do you want the u. s. a saw communists back. elections have made that very clear. but to build a new state, a new russia, one which provides for the people rather than uses them. and at the same time evokes the sort of respect that the soviet union did. while that scares russia's

opponents, hooton's plan scares them. you know, i think the concern is that president putin's public lamentations and private lamentations about the demise of the soviet union have gotten an noisier and stronger over the years. so the concern is that he's actually as a legacy project seeking to reconstitute the soviet union. and then, you know, would his appetite be fulfilled with that eating or what he seek? the soviet union has been gone for 30 years, but had spirited lives on lives on, in the hearts of former citizens who now remember only the glory days, the good pots. they forget the empty shelves, the food lines, the k g b at lives on the minds of russia's rivals who still think in terms of blocks and

superpowers, stuck as they are in the past. who believe that russia lost it say, forever when the ussr collapsed? regardless of the fact that 30 years have passed since i run it, isn't it? even in death, the soviet union still shapes off futures. we spoke with british historian, i'll save yet, history and geoffrey roberts, he says that the fall of the union came as a global shock and was a catastrophe for many did collapses of union agenda not. you know, it was just one of a series of all of really shocking events that occurred in the previous several years. i mean, it was lucky for the shock and for wilbert berlin war and a handful of companies and for east easter eastern eastern europe. so it wasn't shocking as it appears in retrospect,

what you also have to remember is that that was kind of fake, least for the collab. so it wasn't clear that it was a, it was to provide kind of profound collapse actually because because his place that became this sir, come off of it depends like what you coast exists. although some hopes that some of you, you would continue in some form in the form of this sort of independent. i know that in, in effectively that didn't happen. it was not until 1992 that it became clear just how radical and catastrophic goes. the collapse of soviet union was broaching, also said once that you know, anyone that doesn't regret the passing of the user saw, has no as know that he want to fix it, can be recreated. has no, chris has no rights. yeah. a lot of people in present day her russia were better off in science, soviet times then they offered 30 as later. there's also a certain kind of nostalgia thought we saw it, the glories of the place. and in,

you know, why i can't, i have a certain sympathy for this for this nostalgia. and this yearning for the past in, since i consider myself to be an international i did, there were certain aspects of the south soviet multinational site. i still find appealing center on those on other stories for auto dot com that coming away now while the part to this order enrolls with one of anger knuckles on time, advisors enjoy ah, who's diagnosed with cancer in 2000. when the doctors told me the cancer was incurable, i knew i had to make a change. so i decided to travel to one of the most toxic places in america, florida, one of florida's biggest industry.