the latest outbreak appears to have some dreams. now to 0. and finally a charity has brought some christmas cheer to lebanon's capital after a tough year for the city a huge christmas tree is being decorated outside the port of beirut which was rocked by a huge explosion in august it's been set up in honor of the firefighters who responded to the blast which killed around 200 people. deserve these are top stories in the u.s. president donald trump is demanding congress make changes to a landmark coronavirus relief bill drum corps the bipartisan legislation a disgrace it's a man's include raising the stimulus payments to individuals from $600.00 to $2000.00 i do castro has more from washington d.c. . i think there are many extraneous items that are unnecessary included in this

massive massive expanding bill and it does include items like foreign assistance which we know that has very much opposed as well as money for managing wildlife for instance and money for the arts so trump is demanding that congress and mendis bill to remove those extraneous items and also to increase the stimulus payments from $600.00 to most americans to 2000. and 15 more people including 4 former contractors for the controversial private security firm formerly known as blackwater they have been serving long sentences for 2007 massacre in baghdad that left more than a dozen iraqi civilians dead. francis border restrictions with the u.k. it ends a ban aimed at stopping the spread of a more contagious strain of corona virus european residents will be able to cross with proof of a negative covert $1000.00 test much of europe has closed its borders to the u.k.

this week israel will be holding its 4th election in 2 years after a coalition the brief united long time prime minister benjamin netanyahu and rival benny gantz collapsed parliament was dissolved after failing to meet the deadline to pass the budget snap elections will be held in march police in uganda arrest of the leading human rights lawyer weeks before presidential elections nicholas r.p.o. previously represented bobby weinstein as the main challenger to president was 70 who's seeking to extend his 35 years in power a tweet from bobby once accounts have been investigating the killings of protesters last month police accuse him of money laundering and other malicious acts. you have to say now with all the headlines we're back with more news here on al-jazeera but now it's free why. and new perspectives can change a wild. so one chain is even began as a hobby has grown into

a passion a way of life. teaching the next generation to strive for a higher level. and in-cell instilling in his country a sense of freedom and strength. heights my chin is yeah on al-jazeera. hello i'm adrian for the good in this episode we're revisiting bangladesh where a few years ago a garment factory collapsed and killed over 1000 people working inside the magnitude of the accident laid bare the lack of safety standards for the country's

garment workers and the apparent indifference of the multinational corporations that profited from them. it wasn't the 1st accident to happen in that industry and sadly it's unlikely to be the last but the issues raised by this film worth airing again here it is that award winning investigation from al-jazeera as faultline series made in bangladesh. operate the last 5 for last week and pass those savings on door customers to everyday low prices lock. stock. total revenue i believe every year 400000000000 dollars having low prices drives traffic to our stores getting the. it would have been a while for us to lower expenses ahead more prices and here. please welcome tom cruise. all around the globe wal-mart is taking the lead in making

a difference to continuous work the american dream has become a global concept i think it's our country's best export last. 2012 was a good year for wal-mart. but it was a bad year for bangladesh. it experienced the deadliest factory fire in its history wal-mart shorts were among the clothes found in the charred remains but the company escaped accountability. and for many western retailers whose clothes are made in bangladesh it's business as usual. anybody out there know how many zeros or half a trillion dollars like of a number there along. with the

fire that has rained fashions factory last november started on the ground floor and quickly spread. at least 112 people died hundreds of others were injured many workers were trapped inside because the doors were locked and the building had no fire exits. the remains of the fire are still everywhere here this is where workers jumped out of the burning building onto the roof of the storm and tory there's bars in all the windows who are going to kick out of the exhaust fans and jump onto this building. on rukia begins daughter he now died in the fire. last of a look at the build up a little bit in a minute it was a. both of. you haven't received any compensation for your daughter's death in the bush where would i make

you what was already begun with a little. many of the women who escaped the fire still live in the shadow of the factory. mukhtar bondo is one of them. she says she was sowing the wal-mart shorts when the fire broke out. in the cellar this is a lot. better put in money and lots of it well added to. their kind of. mask and i've had to pull up on that if they were they. going on my list said minister. so how did you escape but the electrician and i love i had this it but it let it fall off until i should pull up i'm a whole lot better that i never said can you describe what you were working on. these are the ones you're working on a hand. when word got out that we were visiting other survivors came

to share their stories so you did the hemming along the zipper and the belt and how about you none of the women received any compensation from wal-mart so you hanged unpacked it up and they all vowed to never work at a garment factory again do you know who these pair of shorts were for were not delivered. 5 months after the fire yet another disaster in bangladesh captured the world's attention. rana plaza an 8 story building housing several garment factories collapsed more than a 1000 people died. even though the scale of the collapse eclipsed the fire the fundamental questions re. eased by tazz remain where the same. how could tragedies like this happen and who ultimately should be held responsible.

before we arrived in bangladesh we deceived internal documents related to the wal-mart short order. the paper trail gives us an inside look into the complicated way that wal-mart produces its clothing. wal-mart is a pioneer and also the most ruthless practitioner of a sourcing model that has now come to dominate the apparel industry it's a system that can shield the company from blame when disaster strikes the mark supply chain is defined by 2 critical features the tremendous pressure wal-mart puts on its suppliers and its contract factories overseas to slash production costs which wal-mart knows those factories will do by ignoring the rights the safety of workers and then secondly the utilization of multiple layers of agents and contractors so that wal-mart can distance itself from responsibility for the

inevitable consequences of those sourcing practices. simcoe is a mid-sized garment factory in a neighborhood crowded with them. at its height it had 1500 workers. today there are 600. simcoe is where the shorts were supposed to have been made. wal-mart placed the order with a new york based supplier called success apparel. success apparel then filled it with simple with help from a local buying agent called true colors so this is from success apparel that is our current track see this is. going to do targeted cars and which is like $300.00 and that is the end of the 5th is no where to just mention that this is the wal-mart board bar except if you. never. gives you the faded glory. faded glory is wal-mart's main in-house clothing line

and it was that brand of shorts that was found in the ashes of the dream factory fire. simcoe says it couldn't handle the order after dozens of workers who left town during the muslim holiday of eve didn't return on time so already we were overbooked we were over our capacity and certainly don't have the workers to fill fruitful field orders on time kevin taxing the c.e.o. of successor perl's he visited us and he was like going through our facilities all the production you know use of 4 letter words etc and then he was like and we told him like you know we're having like trouble meeting the deadline you know we need some extensions we need some help he was very upset he said not a single day extension they're going to give us 5 years up country you know so the wal-mart supplier has direct supplier to wal-mart came here and told you to sub com yes yes yes. sub contracting

means paying another factory to take on some of the work. simcoe was already stretched and dealing with the short then it was hit with yet another massive order and then we got this other document from public clothing company and that's another wal-mart supplier. and they've sent a purchase order for almost 300000 shorts you have another set of shorts. august 17th 3 days later you. can make around $300000.00 garments a month. put together the 2 wal-mart orders will more than double its capacity. for years the logic was you place the order and some of the factory will fulfill it somehow the factual fulfill it what is that called for. that's code for like yes you do so contracting if you give it to other lines other production lines to fulfill daughter then wal-mart know about your production capacity here yes

wal-mart does a 3rd party audit so the auditors come in they count your machines for you they know exactly how many garments you can produce on average on the line given what happened into his dream some have asked why simcoe didn't simply refuse the 2nd walmart order factories in places like bangor that are gauged in cutthroat competition with the editors in bangladesh and around the world so it's practically impossible to turn down a major order from wal-mart because that is the factories lively. so to meet 1 march deadline simcoe subcontracted a small part of the success apparel order to a manufacturer called tuba. tuber then sent the shorts to its dream factory a few weeks later the factory caught fire. oh my god. really. really you know i could go to live how can that happen. i don't know. and my

god given me you know there's a look over in the back room. caught fire you got smell you know is what i've reviewed the directory so i didn't send someone to get a lot of things out. success apparel accuse simcoe of subcontracting the order without their knowledge and wal-mart blamed their supplier success but simcoe insists that success knew about dream and that wal-mart also would have known because its own database retailing requires suppliers to identify where orders are being filled retailing is supposed to have a record of every factory authorized to produce wal-mart goods every factory engage in the production of wal-mart goods in may 1 mark named over $240.00 factories it would no longer work with it saying it had a 0 tolerance policy. unauthorized sub contracting simcoe was one of them. if there was no force one person in the business would have gone on as usual. it's

like everybody knows what's going on it's an open secret but getting caught on camera is or i think in the act then you have to disown everything and say i didn't know anything about their duties the practice of the wal-mart to hide you know one more direct contact so yes this was the vendor and every fact you seen by all of the shots up contractors everybody facing a scandal wal-mart refused to accept the shorts or to pay the bill even after some of the order had already been shipped and this is are entirely abandoned for out $1200000.00 simcoe says it's nearly bankrupt so all the shorts were made in these production lines and i really feel bad when i don't see our workers in these production lines you know and all these machines are now empty. after the

1000 fire wal-mart announced it had dropped success apparel as a supplier. we tried to speak to successes representative in bangladesh but we found the company had closed down its office here. we also tried to interview the company's c.e.o. goodman in new york but she refused to speak with us. kevin taxon who was successes president at the time of the fire also refused to speak to us on camera he now heads up another supplier called america group one of its clients is wal-mart if wal-mart were really so upset about what success apparel did one assumes they would not be keen to continue to do business with a leading executive from success apparel. on the phone kevin told us that neither success nords agent in bangladesh true colors knew about the subcontractor. but

we managed to track down true colors last remaining employee in taka. if there's any sup contracting would you be aware of that yeah and then what do you do with that information do you pass it off. important can you read this email from me and tell me where it's from ok then it's saying. the shocking mills the. last of any. one to 6 and what's the subject line of thinking mom. called. con is industry speak for subcontractor. that email was sent by a manager true colors shortly after the fire so despite successes denials their own agent may have been aware of the sub contract. where on the trail investigating how wal-mart's supply chain works here in bangladesh. does the

company know when its orders are being subcontracted. is the way they source their clothing the system itself flawed. the garment industry is notoriously secretive. so we needed an insider. we're on our way to meet an auditor who was hired by wal-mart to assess standards of some of its factories it's very rare for auditors to speak on the record and he doesn't want to speak to us on camera so we recorded the conversation secretly. in bangladesh government regulation of garment factories is lax and international companies are not legally required to ensure working conditions are safe. some companies hire auditors to inspect the factories if you don't know what. they call so. you. know. that. we are not only there they do.

nothing other. than. what do you think about their system. and. what why is it better what's the danger you need. to. do. with it that you want to get it. from what you're saying it sounds like wal-mart's supply chain is so out of control that there could be more doesn't look. bad or. doesn't know where it's goods are being produced it's because they choose not to know this is a company whose success is built 1st and foremost on the extraordinary level of

control they exert over production in their global supply chain wal-mart refused to give us any information about its supply chain but a spokesperson told us wal-mart relies on itself. fliers to implement the company's standards. there's a reason bangladesh is so popular with companies especially those that produce inexpensive clothes that need to be made quickly. the rock bottom cheapest place in the world to make apparel it's cheap because it has the lowest minimum wage for apparel workers of any country in the world that $0.18 an hour. that's about $38.00 a month. but it goes both ways. garments are just as important to bangladesh accounting for 80 percent of its exports and giving jobs to 4000000 people mostly poor women. that gives the industry enormous leverage inside the

country for what the buddha detailers unbias come here to look for a cheaper subclass so that here it is a buyers market everybody everybody take. a share of the cake so these are. for money that we have 5 to 6 years but there are. many and. with these less thinking all this money. it's not just the multinationals. in bangladesh everyone wants a shot at making it in the garment industry i'm headed to a small factory and just finishing the garments they're supposed to be finishing garments for wal-mart and posing as a buyer to get in there. for those who can't open large factories there's always business in sub contracting. even

if it means putting the finishing touches and garments before they're shipped out. do you make anything that ends up in a wal-mart. you may. products that go to wal-mart. a lot but i'd much rather the like if there is a little it was. for you an authorized wal-mart sub contractor for that push but let me live with them and i want to plug it into the good. so this very common that a lot of factory subcontract for big labels like wal-mart without authorization if they go through the gauntlet of the very. issue but if you have a. little bit a little above the law. let me move. you to your 14. so you started working when you were 13 years old. so what's the average age of your workers. who are for all the while that this was. another

little bit. but we just spoke to a girl who said she is 14. wal-mart told us they don't tolerate child labor and their supply chain and they are investigating whether this finishing center did any work on wal-mart products. once we found one finishing house it wasn't hard to find others. what do you make. how many buttons do you put on every day. how old are you. how long have you been working there was it. easy to believe how old are. you going to school i don't know how much money it was out of just. a little. $2500.00 talk is just $32.00

a month we are putting the last of that and into old navy plants lately that says that it is safe. to says that over. there. says old navy. and old navy is owned by gap inc one of the largest clothing companies in the world. this is where a lot of america's clothes come from and it's a reality many companies don't want us to see this is one of very many sub contracting factories of the bottom of the supply chain and bond with this seems completely unregulated completely on authorized there's no fire extinguisher no fire exit it's just a shack in someone's backyard. this morning we went to a finishing house and they had about 20 workers there more than half of them were under 14 there were girls as young as 12 making clothes for gap really in

a finishing section body one 0 my gosh. oh my gosh. i mean for me. just so i just come believe so this is the time that gap should be stepped forward to make this. oh my gosh so see there how critical is the supply chain ease how critical these. get declined to give us an on camera interview they did give us a statement though saying the products we found were quote either counterfeit or improperly acquired. through the bar codes on the tags we found at the finishing house we were able to match the garments to ones at old navy stores in the u.s. . the gap added that it quote strictly prohibits any vendor from

employing underage workers. there is a fairy tale that major brands and retailers like ap and wal-mart tell to the public in this fairy tale gap and wal-mart are companies that are socially responsible and deeply committed to protecting the rights of workers and making every effort to inspect their factories and ensure that everything is on the up and that fairytale has very little to do with the reality of the supply chain for wal-mart for gap and worker rights issues are not a moral issue they're an issue of reputational risk and wal-mart and gap understand that their image in the eyes of the public has a very large impact on the degree to which they can get people to come to their stores and buy their goods and so to the extent that they can be convinced that their image will be damaged if they don't do the right thing for workers then they will make change. after a workers' rights activist who is still haunted by what she saw that day. is

a feeling that when you were in the inside the building you can feel that how these workers forced to remove this window bar there just from bar 2 and the job my feeling was like nothing can be worse than these not can be worse than these like seeing these people burned to ashes and their family crying. in front of you and they cannot find i mean they can to identify these bodies with them is their beloved or not. nobody think about this these human faeces who are making clothes for them and dying in these factories. nobody talking about their compensation nobody talking about their wages that think killing. even i would say even they don't even consider them to human. but they are really human they have needs they have a voice they wanted to speak out they have right to have a simple things. 'd

live. the certain loads positive in terms of safety and security the bodies set up by the international buyers as well as with the local bank of those governments benefactor association is to ensure the safety and security of the workers for us now the accordion alliance have set up certain benchmarks standard which is now followed the bank of those garments manufacture the export of association is following up with those benchmarks that set up their own body which is probably the ready made

garments sustainability council which will ensure the same benchmark and their interpreter themselves in the garment sector set up a over $1000000000.00 fund to ensure the safety and security for the workers. place. following 2 fatal crashes and the past year bowen decided to brown the planned new 70. 7 backs but this wasn't the 1st time that grounded a new aircraft back in 2013 in the 787 dreamliner ran into trouble when a battery caught fire but is out of the us investigative unit discovered there was more to the problem to just smoking batteries. rewind a broken dream the boeing 787 on al-jazeera. one of africa's most troubled nations heads to the polls for presidential and parliamentary elections in a country plagued by violence and political instability could this bring the resolution that is desperately needed to central african republic elections on

al-jazeera. it really is a disgrace us president donald trump slams the massive coronavirus stimulus bill passed by congress suggesting he won't sign unless more relief money is given to people. trump issues 15 more pardons including 4 private military contractors convicted for a 2007 massacre in baghdad's. over on or a kyle this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up because you're.