then, ah, ah, headlining from our t this, our belgium suddenly backtracks on its cobit clamp down, reopening theaters, cinemas and other cultural venues to operate. highest court slammed the measures as excessive across the atlantic. joe biden, distances himself from previous promises to shut down the virus saying it's up to individual states to sorted out, not the white house. we discussed the u. s. president's response to the panoramic so far. america's big texas tough year, which so leading companies come under political 5 from both the republicans and democrats. we look at how the influential firms have become mixed up in divisive us politics and abroad. look inside one of russia's most notorious prisons, known for housing, some of the company's most dangerous criminals in the wake of the soviet collapse.

in the 1990s. walking into his cell like this. we're all these hard tattooed criminal to give you. this look been rejected by a fellow prisoners and carmen, a pariah with something they feared most with a slide for moscow. this is out international. i'm calling brain with the world news this our 1st for you. then, despite europe struggling with the new oma kron kobe stream, belgium has suddenly you turned on some of its tougher restrictions and is reopening cultural and entertainment venues. it's up to the countries highest court, ruled that the measures were excessive. my judgment, the council state suspends the measure of closure of the cultural sector facilities . it rule that this measure was not proportionate and cannot make it possible to understand why the attendance of theaters and cultural venues was particularly dangerous for the health of the population. they live to correspond

a policy whose across is so new year, back on in belgium. and how significant is this ruling? well i think it is significant because essentially what you have is belgium's highest administrative court saying that the government rules make no sense. and as a result, government will have to backtrack. this follows a legal challenge that was filed by a local theatre producer. and it followed a number of restrictions that the government had only imposed a short time ago, amongst these new restrictions where that all theaters cinemas, and cultural venues had to close christmas parties would have to close early, and sports venues would have no audiences. and this is in addition to already the mandatory wearing of moss and people having to work from home. but now we have a situation where everything's reversed. so the cinema's, the theaters and the cultural venues arching reopen. and of course, it raises questions as to just what kind of consistency there is to these

government rules and regulations ileal. gov. there are still months and months of the college crisis ahead of us if the public is not in our side because of a lack of sense in the measures, we will have lost the battle against the virus only with you. now you do have a part of the public that has been very, very vocal in particularly demonstrating and criticizing these government restrictions in recent weeks, they've taken to the streets to voice their concerns. ah . with now in general, the covert situation, a cross belgium has been relatively calm. the figures point to just over 500 cases

per day, per 1000000 people. but the situation is quite different just across the border. if we look there at fonts, for example, fans has registered an all time high of more than $200000.00 new cases per day. and that is a high for europe as well. as a result, the government has to, has had to re impose restrictions. you have a situation where the french police are saying that everybody from 11 years and older. now when they're outdoors, have to wear a mask. except if they're involved in cycling, if they're doing any kind of sports or if they're inside a vehicle. so you have within the new block itself, different european countries dealing with these high cove. it figures in a very different way. you know, it still feels like 2 years on a lot of government still trying to find their way in the dark on this. okay. for now, policy, thank you. of course, the united states still tops the global table when it comes to the number of deaths

from cupboard. but president biden's, now distancing himself from his pledge to shut down the virus saying, now that the solution come come from the white house, but from individual states instead, there is no federal solution. this gets solved, state level, and then all my guess down to where the rubber meets the road. that's where the patient is in. need of help or preventing the need for help. just over a year ago, bite and slammed the trump administrations. coven testing efforts as a travesty, and said that americans vaccine roller was well behind the developed nations well as a then presidential contender biden promised to change the course of the disease in his 1st $100.00 days in office. but that didn't happen. over $400000.00 americans have died from cove it under biden's watch, with new cases hovering it around a half a 1000000 per day. new york has been the worst hit with case numbers. they're reaching an all time record since the arrival of the only constraint r t. saskia taylor has been discussing washington's response to the crisis. vitamin

said what for what. 9 that is no central solution. i don't think that is something that one wants to hand from the president. there never was a federal solution to a virus that spreads more easily than chicken box and with each to very and as becomes more and more virulent. the idea that there's some policy or some politician going to stop it, we should have been acknowledging that this is not a pandemic. and that this is and at least a couple of waves ago, politicians, that's your 1st duty is not only did g d p and inflation and everything, but basically saved the health of their, of their countrymen. and this needs to be done. this was not done. joe biden got elected because of donald trump's of failed handling cove. it in the minds of voters in coming up on the year that he was inaugurated. and we have covered as bad as it's been certainly case wise. we can now add up all the rough weeks for biden, to rough year for by 62 percent of americans. now, double chance,

they said that when we get to a certain threshold, everything's going to be great. that's how to mean to we're going to be able to live more normally in your opinion, is 62 percent in good enough. these terrible, i mean 62 percent is close to 50 percent. not close to 100 percent. the reason why we're not vaccinated is because people are misinformed. it was not accurate information, but vaccines and the fake news that are allowed on social media basically lead to the fact that patients and people at the end of the day will doubt necessity of having a vaccine. there's definitely a lack of trust in the government as well as a lack of trust in big pharmaceutical companies, especially now that an increasing number of so hopefully vaccinated americans are be in told no, if you haven't had a booster shot you're not vaccinated anymore, you as bad as all those people, it didn't get vaccinated, vaccine mandate for domestic ad travel. do you think that's the direction that we're getting and the vaccines are for your personal protection? we have seen less of evidence that the vaccine limits transmit ability. if you don't have that part of the puzzle from

a political message and law making perspective, then you don't have the pretends to set up the mandates. put up other restrictions of occupancy restrictions or telling people that they need to wear a mass from when they walk into the building until they sit down and they can take it back off. none of this stuff is going to stop this virus. we should be deciding for ourselves the best way out of this the sooner we're going to be able to find the best equilibrium that we're going to have in this new reality though. yeah. or here in russia, the daily cov, italy's been declining, but of course that doesn't diminish the severity of the virus that he 600 patients are on critical support in moscow alone, being given vital supplies of oxygen. ortiz, anton krislofski trace is how the life saving supplies are reaching patients in need. oh, boy, own breathing. how does that person dream?

we don't usually pay attention to breathing. we see it somehow attached to the body, a mandatory component of life. i remember the fear when i felt that my breath was about to stop that i was forgetting have to breathe. let's go with it all new oil. i would say the turning point occurred this year with the emergence in the delta strain. when it became clear that medical treatment requires heisman to have more oxygen, on average one patient can assume 50 leaves of oxygen from minutes if it's not intensive therapy, but at the case, a serious volumes can rise to 60 leaves is permitted much in a commercial truck with a trailer that can produce up to $1.00 tons of liquid oxygen per day. thus the amount, the average russian hospital consumes daily for you, ah, just monopoly if we're now at a filling station we're oxygen is pumped into cylinders under high pressure. cylinders are needed by hospitals to help transport patients. today,

our country produces $2700.00 tons of oxygen per day. in the past, we have had to and now we have to work in a manual mode. we have close ties, the ministry of defense, gross cosmos arose atom. all the companies that help supply hospitals with oxygen mm. with time was taking every day, if not every hour matter. but we have been told to ramp up production to full capacity by any means. that's why as demand has increased, oxygen production has also increased from 200 tons to 600 tons. remodel saw city thought i

was a fight for life, fight for oxygen fight for all of us for you. and for me, facebook's toughest, every year has seen politicians on both sides of the divide, putting pressure on the firm over whistleblower and anti trust claims as well as a corporate overhauled to become meta. the firms also been trying to woo lawmakers along party lines. he goes down of next looks at how america's big tech firms have become swept up in the countries polarizing political same from multi $1000000.00 fines to watching the lid blown right off some of their most sensitive secrets for big tech 2021 spelled big problems and facebook got the biggest kicking things started to turn sour 11 of its former employees when rogue and testified that the platform apparently exploited children for profits and failed to sends

a hate speech. and there needs to be a radio for a home, or someone like me could do a tour of duty after working at a place like this. and, and have a place to work on things like regulation to bring that information out to the oversight. or if that have the right to do oversight, regulatory agency within the federal government. yes. taking kindly to whistleblowers is one thing that american officials absolutely can not put on their c v's. yeah. chelsea manning, julian assange, i'm talking about them. but francis hogan turned out to be a very different breed of whistleblower with billionaires and democratic party. top dogs sticking up for her after all. her demands filled conveniently in line with the government's own grievances against big tech. her testimony dovetails very closely with the democrat censorship agenda. their plan or their desire to heavily sensor social media and to take out their political adversaries. the

kind of government intervention that was proposed by how again and those who were pulling her strings is going to take place an opaque fashion behind the scenes. and undoubtedly with input from the intelligence agencies which are by nature opaque and unaccountable to the public. when you're a real whistle blower ration you are targeted by the government. you are silent when you are prosecuted and sent to prison. but if you are celebrated on capitol hill and finance, i know that by independent company, i'm sorry, but you're not a whistleblower europe. political school, her revelation has got massive traction in the media and in the senate. you are a 21st century american hero. here's my message for mark zuckerberg, your time of invading our privacy. promoting toxic content and praying on

children in teens is over. big tack is facing. pick tobacco's moment of reckoning. mugs, zuckerberg try to fight back. my view is that what we're seeing is a coordinated effort to selectively usually document, to pay it for a tour of our company. alas, his trials and tribulations did not. and that democrats, preston, calling for the ted joined to be dismembered, choked into separate businesses, facebook, instagram, and whatsapp. they also floated the idea that the platform, not just the users, should bear responsibility for all the content on its pages. and again, facebook try to say face will well, rather put on a new one, re branding into meta. wait, where's martin? mm. i think he's in the middle of some high. perfect. hey mark. i said, let me put my gave me on so i can beat you. you'll be able to work out

a new world even against in a i was a good, persistent state virtual object laid on an interactive pastor environment. oh, you are. yes, you are. our company is now met. well, goofy robots may have impressed a bunch of 4th graders, but certainly not. the democrats met as in wearing cancer, to democracy, matter sizing for a global surveillance and propaganda seemed to listen authoritarian regimes and destroying sheila society for profit. facebook wants us to start calling it meta, but we're just going to keep calling it what is a threat to privacy, democracy and children. republicans gave facebook a good walloping to the social media giant, brought their roth upon itself. well, by blocking donald trump, of course, as twitter did to, if they can band president trump, all conservative voices could be next. a house republican majority will reign in

big tech power over our speech for every liberal, celebrating from social media, been the big tech oligarchy can muzzle the former president. what's to stop them from silencing you? twitters bumpier ended up in a change of leadership project. dorsey stepped down amid reports of growing discontent among investors making way for the new boss to rog wall, a man who seemed to have put twitters use a policy above free speech. our role is not too big but was madman, but our role is to serve ahead liberally, conversation, and our moves and reflect. there are things that we believe were healthier, public opposition. the kinds of things that we we don't to worry about. this is to focus less on thinking about each, but thinking about how the banks have changed each year yields big tech scandals in abundance. 2021 made no exceptions here. raising questions if there's any way out

tool to tame the big tech as big oil. once was your without the for moscow on the way, just a few months left for president mc chrome to convince french voters to keep him in the job. because the competition snapped at his heels to meet some of his biggest challenges among all stories. after the break ah oh, is your media a reflection of reality? in the world transformed? what will make you feel safer? isolation for community. are you going the right way? or are you being led somewhere? direct. what is true?

was his way in the world corrupted. you need to descend. ah, so join us in the depths or remain in the shallows. with 2021 rapidly coming to an end to this time for some reflection. what will we remember about this year? how did our lives change? also? we look forward to the new year. what does 2020 to have in store for us? will we be living in interesting cars? ah, logan president putin sack to russia's prison chief last week as reforms get underway in the wake of damming video, showing widespread abuses and torture in penitentiary facilities. well, next week of it is say notorious former prison in saint petersburg has now been replaced with a formal modern facility,

the old jail that was infamous in the ninety's, when it, how some of russia's most dangerous criminals. amid the chaos that followed the collapse of the soviet union, ortiz constantine ross. coff has been given rare access. but bear in mind that his report does contain graphic descriptions of violence. me were in saint petersburg and in front of what used to be rushing most infamous prison for more than a century. this was the largest incarceration facility in the whole of europe were the country's most notorious and violent criminals were being kept. now we're going to check out the jails, darkest parts that have been hidden from the general public. for decades. this looks like a perfect sat for a horror movie. even after 4 years since the prison was shut down, its empty cells and court are still sent chills down your spine. this is one of the solitary confinement cells that were widely used during stalins rolling. in the

thirty's and forty's, you can see how small it is. i think 3 kind smaller than a regular. so you can, i mean he can even fully stretch out your arms while inside. you have to spend days and weeks in a cell like this where it can effectively only stand or sit on the edge of a small metal bed. lying down during the daytime is forbidden. well then it becomes how on earth in the prison was billed at the end of the 19th century as the most advanced facility of its kind in russia. firstly because of its iconic architecture . we cross shape of the 2 main buildings. not only gave the jailers unofficial name, but also made it easy for guards to monitor and access every corner of that prison . at a time when ccc cameras were mostly with history,

the prison served as a pre detention facility. yet in the soviet times, there was also we did a good win for those found guilty of the most violent crimes like multiple murders and rapes. this is probably the dark part of the prison death row behind the seal gate. there was a small basement where though sentenced to death were executed. he came to nationwide notoriety in the 9290s when the severe economic crises that followed the collapse of the soviet union and crime rates through the roof. russian streets became an arena of bloody wars between newly formed criminal gangs. what are you looking at? what are you doing here anyway? who do you think that you're going to cough up that cache you? i mean, it was you that, that with this kind of talk was column back then there with dictionaries of criminals. lang is out of radical islam made ski used to run among russian criminal

circles. in the 9th, 1992, he spent 8 months in this prison on record to your charges. i, burleigh, of the businesses, someone owes me money. so i went off to deal with the guy. i didn't go to raise the meeting, go guns. almost everyone had gone to that time. we arrived at the meeting place in the police to meet with the crime rate was so high in the ninety's, europe's largest prison quickly became too small to fit in all the mob. stories and violent criminals are popular word for the area. the door opens. i filthy ugly mugs staring at me. their faces of hardened criminals, yet not roll. i sat down on the edge of the bed. it was our place to sit down these guys, look in the light that as i lit a cigarette and of these gangs was a smoke, they took almost a whole pack for me. so he smoked together and talked. so i realized is going to be okay. next warden who served in this prison at the time,

recalls some of the night mary scenes he witnessed every day at work a miracle about to 14 people used to shed his tiny cell. is it true that some in and slept on the floor under the bed? otherwise it was impossible to fit. everyone in people slept into shifts. a lack of funding had left the prison without the most basic things like toilet seat inmates ended up rolling their blankets to have at least minimum comfort growing up in russia, in the ninety's seeing videos of this person's overcrowded cells. i vividly remember how terrified i was when i imagine what it would be like, walking into a cell like this. were all these hard tattooed criminals give you this look as the door slammed behind you. and some of the former inmates recalled that being rejected by a fellow prisoners and becoming a pariah with something they feared the most,

some times even more than solitary confinement or punishment from the guard. it was not. i mean, this is a terrible place to ruin the loss of people's lives. what's your new job? but everyone who came up to the door they were mentally damaged. is caliah to me. yeah. well, you know how young guys will rate, but old mob does a couple of times. they raped young guys simply because they wanted 6. the country's future president vladimir putin visited the crosses in 1992. he was particularly shot in prison. dentist pulled out inmates ti without painkillers. the decision was made to shut down the notorious jail altogether and build a new one from scratch. in the next episode, we're inside the new prison that has replaced the old one is. the most important is that we have a rest. you can look from the inside. we have any prisoner friday night from you.

what happened? i couldn't tell you the right language and i killed them. i strangled in your wishing fish. what really wants to be back with you? he's wait for me. 2022 is lining up to be a big election in france with president mcroy and hoping for a 2nd term. but he's up against some big competition in the final months before paulding stops of charlotte to bend. skinner reports. hi im is running out on a manual macro ones. first time in the lease a with the french people just months away from a new vote. and it does seem that even after 5 rocky years, macaroni is still in po position. i think it will be mark one micron, whatever happens, i will vote micro. however, he faces a battle with some new faces in the mix, all vying to unseat the so called president of the rich. and until recently,

some predicted this would be an election that would be a run off a 2017 with mack on facing off against the national rallies marine la pen. now, while she still showing favorably in the polls, she may not be his main opponent. for those who missed it, meets eric sim. all, we laugh i a brand you doesn't mean this. his words more lost it into the presidential campaign before he was even confirmed as a possible candidate. initial poll suggested that he could be the one to face up to mac on in the 2nd round, but he support has since dipped. ah a however, could his campaign be about to get a boost? is a more is gaining allies from some unexpected quarters. some kid on them,

he is the only one who has discernment and courage and who cares about civilization? what he stands for is, will i live for the defense of civilization then? and there is a valerie case, she's already fought off the big names in her room party, let her public on, and now she's angling for the fight her life. she believes that she is the only one who can deliver a knockout blow to mac on an average lavender for victory. the french people understood it would be either micron or us. and she could be right. early polls suggest if the woman who describes herself as part thatcher part merkel will makes it into the 2nd round of voting. she could give mack on a run for his money. now what's interesting about france's presidential election is just how the vast majority of people are apparently only considering giving their

support to right or perceived right when candidates. and what mat connie's seen is the man to beat. he remains incredibly unpopular. ah oh, you look at that country like a company, really, it's no less than a company. and if the french people have voted for menu in my core, i 5 years ago, it was because they thought, wow, it's a young nicholas man. he knows had to run a company, a lot of people who had voted for a menu and michael got disappointed because they said, hey, you know, you are going around the country like a business, like a company, and it's not working. so what happened in a company when it's not working,

the shareholders get rid of the, our general manager, and then they get another one. the other scene that has been emerging is a sense of hocking back to france, is pass candidates consistently talking about returning to traditional roots about holding on to francis identity. and one name keeps cropping up is, you know, highlight the goal. he's the founder of the current french republican. that's a man that for many symbolizes the best of what it is to be french. it seems that may be a winning strategy from buffalo. it's important to have a charismatic leader, represents france. well, someone who knows how to make decisions to have someone who is strong, not necessarily physically, but he shows that he is sure of himself. someone smart when that honesty, respect for the people above oh, and a commitment to france. 2022 also sees another real test from the viability of mac

calls and longer term project for france. he is on the move party which is created in the wake of his when just 5 years ago. we'll also find out whether it remains a force in politics here. elections to the national assembly, come home on the heels of the presidential vote. will his vision be given the rub a stamp of re approval, or will it be discarded to history? only france can decide charlotte, even sky oxy paris. okay, that's it for me. the kaiser report year and the on the way with max and stacy off to which andrew farm has got your next update from alta h q in moscow. enjoy the rest of your day lou ah, hans driven by drink shaped by thinkers and those with.