A preview of the week russian opposition figurehead alexina vali says he is making progress in his recovery as moscow in berlin wrangle over evidence in the alleged poisoning. Are broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is our International Im sean thomas glad to have you with us as we recap our weeks top stories with our weekly program. Now belarus has seen another day of mass unrest 6 weeks on from the contested election thousands gathered in minsk on sunday. Calling on president lukashenko to resign archies earlier describe the tactics used by the protesters. What they do is they gather in little groups all over the city in various districts where they live and then they could show all of that into a into a huge rally huge much asss happening barden knowledge crowds merging together right now its difficult to tell with the with regards to numbers for perhaps 5000. 00 people behind me a whole maybe joining the but the impression so far is that there are fewer people than there were last week at this at this time last week last sunday there were many more demonstrators a much larger much nevertheless theyve got their plan theyve got a route through that theyre going to take the organizers go to lead them down and police are waiting for the witchy 2 convoys of police and Law Enforcement zuba about the city owned morning today preparing for this rally preparing for an eventuality tires sharifs blocks off weve even seen bob wire fences barricades set up a wretched across the city to keep marches on a specific route that has been the fathers against abortion cobar havent clashed yet today with police there was sure many demonstrators arrested yesterday perhaps hundreds up to 400 according to the opposition and to leave the shank of a telegram channels and Rights Groups you may hear a loud music blaring through huge speakers behind me in the square that is a services theyve taken to playing loud patriotic music to to drown out the chants of the cries from from the protesters and the last week it it irritates them no ed never the sea it has been carved so far protesters gathered in the thousands now demanding for president to be shaky to resign to leave to hand over power of the government insisting on its own their supporters saying that he is the legitimate president of the bun the election and that is the xp. Yes the sanctions these protests that these rallies these demonstrations are already legal will perhaps be clashes later as the demonstrators head for government offices government buildings and residents of the president. Washington has reimposed u. N. Sanctions against iran which were in place before the 2015 nuclear deal the move has put the u. S. At odds with some of its closest allies germany france and the u. K. Have pushed back saying america has no authority to reinstate United Nations sanctions unilaterally and the u. N. Secretary general has refused to follow up on the u. S. Declaration citing legal uncertainty but secretary of state my pompei o has threatened penalties against any country that continues to trade with iran. We need cheated the snapback process to restore virtually all previously terminated un sanctions if United NationsMember States feel to fulfill their obligations to implementing these sanctions the United States is prepared to use our domestic authorities to impose consequences for those failures and ensure that iran does not read the benefits of un prohibited activity france germany and the United Kingdom know that the us ceased to be a participant in the way following their withdrawal from the deal on the 8th of may 2018 consequently the purported notification is incapable of having legal effect we remain guided by the objective of upholding the authority and integrity of the United Nations security council. The original un sanctions covered uranium enrichment as well as the buying and selling of conventional weapons they were lifted 5 years ago under the nuclear deal however in 2018 the trumpet ministration withdrew from the pact washington says it is taking action now because an arms embargo on iran expires in october and irans president Hassan Rouhani has denounced the move saying his country will never give in to pressure while the nations Foreign Ministry urged washington to have a rethink. Pyometra devotion to on 10 runs message to washington is clear return to the Global Community returning to your again the rebellion and then the Global Community will accept you. We heard from political analyst fought izadi he thinks the us is getting when dealing support in its approach to iran. Not to be in the partners its going to accept that premise. The us is isolated in the unusual manner and whats going to happen is that the us is going to use force to pressure other countries to accept the good interpretation of the Un Resolution 2231 and a few countries are going to accept that the us has a history of water mongering so you always have to be careful but the United StatesForeign Policy so we have this. Conflict escalating if we hope that the president is not in. The. Scenario if he is behind the polls he should know better not to engage in any military activities against iran advances put both. Russian opposition figure alexy in a volley continues to recover at a hospital in berlin after coming out of an induced coma but the diplomatic standoff between moscow and berlin over his alleged poisoning has only gotten worse on monday germany said labs in sweden and france had independently verified that volley was poisoned by a nerve agent from the nova group the Global Chemical weapons watchdog is also analyzing the samples russia has requested that information on the case be shared so far to no avail. With their excuses are completely contrived germany says it cant tell us anything in direct to the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons and weve been to the e. U. Several times and they say talk to berlin we are ready to talk to anyone we want not when in the absence of facts we are pressured into giving an account of ourselves but on the basis of specific clearly formulated concerns we are always ready to have a professional conversation. Russia insisted doctors found no trace of nova charcoal or any other poison while the volley was in their care moscow has repeatedly stressed its willingness to cooperate with germany to establish exactly what happened what is done of comments now on the controversy surrounding the case. Alexina volley is recovering whatever it was killing his body is on retreat and the politician seems to be almost out of these woods so concerns over his health make room for concerns over what exactly happened and europe is demanding that russia aids the investigation installations arise which only the russian government can and must answer we continue calling us year to investigate this our demand is that russia urgently explain what happened well russia has already contributed by not letting alexina valmy die in the 1st crucial hours after the politician fell sick russia contributed by opening its airspace to a team of german doctors letting them visit russia contributed by eventually putting him on a german rescue plane allowing the value to be airlifted to berlin and by offering its medical data to german colleagues so now russia says the ball is in germanys court moscow current aid the investigation if its kept in the dark on emerging evidence to the press with enough when it all all this is taking place against the backdrop of facts that our proposals to berlin to jointly sort out what happened ive been dismissed and a far fetched pretax thats hurdles are brought into the race because berlin starts playing a game of all take and no give russia can get the results of the expertise made in german labs since it will reveal too much of the german armys capabilities too much but only to russias eyes apparently because berlin had no problem with sharing its data with almost 200 other nations Member States of the or b c w we are very negatively the fact that germany refusing to assist the russian Law Enforcement agencies secretly transferred no bounds tench data to its trusted partners it is clear that this was done with a political purpose. So that france and sweden would automatically confirm unfounded accusations against russia but wait russia is a member state of the o. P. C. W. And that means it finally has all the time in the world to scrupulously study everything the germany could find right wrong the only thing that it actually means is that russia can hop on the merry go round of rejections because berlin tells moscow it can get everything from the or b c w and the o p c w saying the exact opposite bumping russia right back to berlin russia is in a loop which doesnt really help o. P. C. W. s reputation with moscow as russia had previously accused the un bag watchdog of becoming politicized by your p. C. Dont you like so Many International commands ations its always great to be subject to political pressure and thats critically from of course those to fund it largely funded much largely the western powers weve seen with the p. C. To abuse role in investigating alleged Chemical Attacks in syria but its investigations have tended to ascribe blame has been riddled with inconsistences and problems that will not rise in independent investigation but that there appears to be scope for political interference and pressure to take close we saw a similar situation in respect to the scruple case where. It was very reluctant to share its information with russia in respect of it what do you have to discover in terms of chemical analysis and so on giving no access to evidence keeping waters murky playing every bureaucratic trick in the book this is how the e. U. Is shutting out russias investigators also raising the sanctions guillotine over the country almost like it wants no investigation from russia but an immigration. Admission of guilt. This video was posted some days ago on the valleys Instagram Account it shows his team searching his hotel room in tomsk shortly after he fell sick wearing surgical gloves that they collected evidence in plastic bags which according to the post were passed on to the German Authorities one of the Water Bottles they submitted was said to contain traces of novacek we spoke it to the cocreator of that very nerve agent who claims if it was used in a volley would not have made it to the plane or. Wouldnt have been able to leave the hotel thats if it was and he really touched it or drank something 1st of all even in small and not very toxic doses provokes pupil contraction in such a way a person would be almost blind so could barely move so even with only very mild exposure he wouldnt have been able to get on a plane there are photos of him in the hotel in the plane in the russian hospital and yet we cant see any of the symptoms poisoning and novacek and not words to use for this case. Richard that you would they definitely would get something they had just simple surgical gloves and thats it and also imagine a bottle that has traces of the substance on the outside it would be a very smart person who would try to fill a bottle with such a dangerous liquid and spill it all down the sides creating a dangerous situation for everyone. Its a new dangers for the world. Well a small group of wealthy nations has already brought up the the future supplies of covert 1000. 00 vaccines which are currently at the Research Stage and that is according to a report by the Oxfam Charity this means that only 13 percent of the worlds population will initially have access to the drugs loss and the head of oxfams inequality policy division says pharmaceutical companies are putting profits 1st. Its extremely dangerous for the world because rich nations monopolizing the soup lawyer potential. But more importantly theyre doing deals with big corporation. Defending their intellectual property and their profit meaning that the soup lowing. Being own to. Oxfam says that there wont be enough vaccine doses to meet a Global Demand the 5 leading vaccine candidates are currently undergoing stage 3 Clinical Trials however even if all 5 proved to be a success which according to the charity is extremely unlikely around 2 thirds of the worlds population will still have to wait until 2022 at least on top of the potential drug shortages oxfam says quote the vaccine deals lay bare the inequality between prosperous and the developing countries. To give an example the u. K. Has managed to secure up to 5 doses per person depending of course on how the trials go while for bangladesh in stark contrast the figure is only one dose per 9 people max lawson again says that prolonged on availability of the vaccine in some countries will result in many unnecessary deaths. Companies like madonna in the us are only sending their backs into very rich countries theyre selling it at a very high price somewhere between 16. 00 and 35. 00 a dollars and you have to have 2 doses so thats like 70. 00 per person so they are very clear that they theyre doing this to make a profit and they want to make money from this maxine what were saying is we need a peoples backs not a profit backside and we need to see. The breaking down of the patent barriers and we need to see open sharing of banks in technology to maximise this applause and effective vaccines all over the world as soon as possible but the huge economic and human cost of it did lie in the variability of the vaccine if you think of countries like india or south africa brazil if these countries are not getting access to safe and effective but staying until 2022 then they would have more lockdowns their economies would be huge trouble and many many people would dog i do not need to because the vaccine has been artificially russian and far the profits of pharmaceutical corporations. Still to come this hour the israeli Prime Minister is that decision to send the country into a 2nd a lockdown has caused widespread anger even on the beach thats why much more after a break this is the weekly archaean try. On this edition of the program we discussed the possibility to towering Figures Supreme CourtJustice Ruth Bader ginsburg and americas preeminent russian expert steven cohen will be remembered so good reasons the latest a show. The world is driven by a dream shaped by one person. In a day or thinks. We dare to ask. Join me every thursday on the alex simon show and ill be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business im show business ill see you then. Come back this is in the weekly on our to international now the shortage of covert 1000 testing in the u. K. Has led teachers to question the safety of reopening schools peoples and staff are among those struggling to get checked reports. It wasnt so long ago that senior british politicians were promising that it was safe for children to finally go back to school i think the crucial thing is that pupils get back to school its much much better for their for their health and Mental Wellbeing their jobs their educational prospects weve made it clear this is compulsory parents do need to be sending their children back to school all the scientific advice is that schools are safe its only a few weeks into the new terminal ready those claims are coming unstuck one Teaching Union is warning that education secretary Gavin Williamson may face legal action because they say schools were opened without proper safeguards being put in place teachers a founding the alarm but a chronic lack of Testing Facilities means that i do occasionally england make way to a halt the staff and pupils are forced to stay home School Managements have been doing everything they chant but the government has failed to do their side of things testing is impossible to get hold of social distancing isnt possible in full class sizes i mean infection rates are going up so we have an absolutely chaotic situation where understandably and correctly pupils and staff are being sent home and they have potential sitting timbs but nobody knows if its just a cold or coated and its a completely lost story and of course the danger is that there will be some situations where in fact we did have an infectious child in the sco but nobody knows because we cant get a test to check one way or the other facing the lack of testing more than 200 school and College Leaders said staff and pupils couldnt get tests locally and were being directed to test centers long distances away and with the government mandating no more than 6 people to meet at a time that encouraging students to get back into the classroom your thirtys the knowledge that the whole situation is in quite some chaos every school has a small supply of home test kits for those. The teachers that conduct Testing Center teacher who tested positive had to wait a week for her results i dont deny that it is an enormous challenge with children and teachers unable to get access to tests and essentially being told to get to the back of the queue if they want one union need to say that the government has failed to prepare despite having had months to do so in fear of the country could go back into defacto lock down once more children are being sent home who cannot get tests and parents are being forced to take 2 weeks off to look after them we will end up with an effective lock down there is an escalating sense that they would end up with a return to lock down by default its not just with regard to the testing that schools are finding themselves short they also appear to lack the basic hygiene necessities nearly a 3rd of teachers didnt know if theyd have adequate supplies of soap and water just 18 percent had had from the tides then every classroom is left parents to question how they supposed to feel that their children will be safe in school when teachers themselves dont seem all that convinced missions to keep schools open. Would clear up but they have to be so violent and wont leave the farming since being back is that you know. Im selftaught and its as we. Expect some trace versus thank you stance weve not remind you that they have a duty we need they need. And obviously weve been seeing which. Israel entered a 2nd National Lockdown on friday which is expected to last at least 3 weeks the anti covert measure came into force just hours before the start of the jewish new year Prime MinisterBenyamin Netanyahu says its a response to the soaring infection rate. I know. We have witnessed another along with the increase in deaths and the continued increase in the number of critically ill patients as many of the experts have recommended we may have no choice but to tell you the guidelines. Well you know his decision has been deeply unpopular hundreds rallied against the new lockdown measures on the beach in tel aviv on saturday demonstrators danced and chanted slogans accusing the government of mishandling the covert 1000 crisis. The new restrictions and clued a 10 people limit on indoor gatherings israelis also wont be able to go further than 500 meters from their homes plus schools and Shopping Centers will be closed and businesses wont be allowed to receive clients the measures are aimed at reigning in the daily infection rate which has almost doubled since the start of the month there have been more than a 1000 deaths and the total number of cases exceeds 180000 weve heard from residents in tel aviv about what they think about the new lockdown its very frustrating its killing the economy and many people feel like there is no hope and they dont know what is going on its probably a good thing because cases are rising that the rule of so thats what were going to do but i dont think its going to help i expect that instructions will go down but theyll go right back up as soon as the closer hands honestly it doesnt affect me at all where i live 500 metres i go anywhere i want or do anything i want people i still say dont wear a mask so i really dont understand how this is going to help anything. Heres a cute story for you graduating from university in the middle of a pandemic as proven challenging for many students but one italian man who survived the Great Depression added world war 2 was undeterred the former rebel way worker finally got his degree this summer at the age of 96. And at that after working i retired and said what do i do now i didnt like doing nothing so i started studying. A wonder me on when my mother gave me the money to go and buy breakfast states instead of buying myself a sandwich with potatoes i went instead to buy books. I seriously wanted to enroll and i am a little tired after 3 years of study every evening i finished reading and studying at midnight without exception even on sunday its. The fact ive never drunk alcohol i always drank milk and i believe this is the secret of my memory then of course reading helps the mind needs to be trained in your. Car that does it for me this ill be back with more news in about 34 minutes stay with us this is the weekly a large international. On this edition of the program we discussed the classical 2 towering Figures Supreme CourtJustice Ruth Bader ginsburg and americas preeminent russian expert steven cohen both going to remember the good reason for their legacies sure. There. Are. A long while going to worlds apart its hard to find them although that subject inductance in International Relations and democracy on the National Level is supposed to be s. A way off ensuring that governments are sensible and responsive to their people but internationally it is often a source of insecurity and instability and one that is driven by be maneuverings of foreign powers is it possible to decouple domestic governance from geopolitical gains while to discuss that im now joined by need cheeseman professor of democracy at the university of birmingham and call there of how to meet an election president shes not its good to talk to you thank you very much for your time. A pleasure to be here now your book how to rig an election came out in 2018 and i have to know that russia and other countries of the former soviet union fish are very prominently there for a good reason to this part of the world is a recognized source of electoral trickery lets put it mildly my question is this our failure its your measure absent democratic standards how it should be taken as some natural growing pains or as a permanent and deliberate handicap. Absolute academic concert as i have to say that kind of estate is the option that some less likely in between those 2 extremes i think you know we go back to the seventys or eightys if we were talking then about exactly this question these countries going through growing pains and i think by the time weve got 2020 we need to recognize that countries that are stuck in this kind of middle ground between terrorism on the one hand and democracy in the other they hold elections but they rig the elections the same government a leader is in power for very long its im these countries arent simply having growing pains that are on the way to some wonderful democratic future need for a day you know complete talk receives that have no ability to have any criticism whatsoever they seem to be reasonably stable countries that are stuck in between these 2 extremes so. It would be i think we should expect countries like russia to look roughly the same intensity in 20 years time and its going to take quite a lot to shift russia even to a complete or a terran state that doesnt hold elections rule or to a much more Democratic State where we could genuinely talk about some of the tweets inducing i was writing of eights after the soviet union and i remember very vividly this transition from infuse the absent any and if you havent for democracy to see a lot of cynicism not only among the people but also among the leaders and when it comes to the latter as. It was primarily driven by a realisation and deeply held belief that for the west democracy is not a value its not the goal its not something that they lead by its actually an instrument its in to all of many places and its as theyve i think totally wrong about that. Tell me a little bit more because i dont really see why democracy would be a stick of the west so tell me a little bit more about where that perception comes from well he your book is not very flattering to you after it terry ends but i think youre ultimately confirmed that deeply have believed that everybody almost everybody uses different kinds of tricks and manipulations to you of your kind of