politics — after he clinched a surprise victory in the alabama senate race. democrats are calling for the postponement of a final vote on president trump's planned tax reform. the president wants that vote to be held next week. the british prime minister theresa may is preparing to meet european union leaders in brussels — hours after a parliamentary defeat on a key piece of brexit legislation. mps voted to give parliament a legal guarantee of a vote on the final deal. 11 members of her own conservative party rebelled. the united nations is warning that a reduction in the number of peacekeeping troops in the democratic republic of congo is likely to lead to more instability and loss of life. the unfolding humanitarian crisis has lead to severe acute malnutrition affecting hundreds of thousands of children. now on bbc news, it's time for click. this week, a full body of kids‘ favourites. a future head of state, and a bare bottom.

today we are in manchester, at the children's global media summit, a meeting of those who make the content that our children will be watching in the coming years. it's an event with some very important speakers. parents, like catherine and me, are raising the first generation of digitally immersed children. and this gives us many reasons to be optimistic about the impact of technology on childhood. providers will meet the expectations of the next generation of viewers.

forget the generation x, y, and z, you're now all over the hill, we are now talking about generation u — the unlimited generation. yep, today's children will grow up expecting unlimited access to information and entertainment on demand. i'm under the water in a coral reef. now, if you want to know what children are up to, why not ask them? kids insight runs anonymous questionnaires for 400 kids every week to gather data about the latest trends, hottest new characters, and online habits. because, of course, it's not all about what kids need, there is a big industry that wants to make money here and target those young minds with messages and merchandise. we do find surprising the amount of children that are viewing youtube without any parental guidance or oversight.

we find it is probably about a third, maybe less than a third of under tens, they're parents aren't monitoring what they are watching on youtube at all. which is is quite shocking. that's also a theme here. how to protect children from harmful content and stop them being exploited by the increasingly personal, interactive, and immersive technology is that they are using. i believe strongly in the positive power of technology, but i'm afraid i find the situation alarming. my alarm does not come from childhood immersion in technology, per se, my alarm comes from the fact that so many parents feel that they are having make up the rules as they go along. we have put the most powerful information technology in human history into the hands of our children. yet we do not yet understand its impact on adults,

let alone at the very young. it's a massive concern for many parents, but there are moves to try and make children more savvy about online safety, as lara lewington found out when she went back to school. the opportunity for kids to access information and learn has never been bigger. but with that comes a challenge. the threats online are clear to see. but an increasing number of children are becoming aware of the dangers and how to steer clear. never click on a link in an e—mail unless you are absolutely sure who it is from. basically, these are how many attackers are coming in 'cause the firewall is off. this week an investigation into paedophiles using live streaming apps led to nearly 200 arrests, including teachers, medics, and law enforcers. a batch of leading brands suspended advertising from youtube after suspect comments remained beside videos featuring children. this is not long after the site hit the headlines when its algorithms were found to be pulling inappropriate content into its kids

app, which was then viewed by children. of course, the company says it does all they can. age restricting content in the main app as well is aiming to protect those using youtube kids altogether. in light of the most recent issues, it's also adding an extra 10,000 moderators to act alongside the software aiming to keep kids safe. but with such a wealth of information out there, who can actually be held accountable for what is published? first and foremost the tech companies themselves need to be held accountable. and i mean at the ceo level. all of these platforms have an enormous responsibility to the kids and families in their audience, because they are making billions of dollars off of them. second, we also need to see some

kind of regulation that 0fcom or others could provide that would say this is appropriate or not on these platforms. because if you think that tech companies will self regulate, then you are kidding yourself. parents have a huge role to play. it's not so much that you can say it's the industry's problem, but as a parent you need to educate yourself. this is the same as teaching your kids how to walk across the street and not get hit by a car. and this is really the world they're living in. but at the same time the benefits of this sort of online access can't be ignored. here at this central london school, pupils are taking part in idea, the digital and enterprise version of the duke of edinburgh award. what are you up to? i am doing a safety badge. the challenges are open and free to all ages, even adults, to provide real life skills. and they can be done anywhere, any time. the pupils here at westminster academy are covering a range of subjects, including creating virtual reality, the importance of colour

in photography... it's, in essence, the different types of colours. if you want to get a retro feel, you'd reduce the hue and saturation. ..as well as some of the more serious issues surrounding safety online. what are the main things you feel you have come away from this so far having learned? for all my devices i used to use the same password. so if the hackers knew one of my passwords they would be able to get anything. so i learned that and i tried to change my passwords for everything, even the school website. so i am just going to carry on with the badge. are there any negatives you feel from the fact that everything is out there and available? you just have to be careful of false news. there are always these clickbait articles that pop up. 0nce i've read them, i've realised it does not really sound right. it is a new problem, really, the fake news issue. how do you see this will play out in the future? do you think you will always be a bit wary when you read something as to whether it's true or not?

undoubtedly. but that is one massive advantage of having it. we have become more critical as a society. we are less likely to be susceptible. it is not just about whether or not you have done gcse computer science, it is about can you actually manipulate or apply the knowledge? so what we're trying to do, and do it in such a way that they have the opportunity of learning at themselves, while at the same time making them aware of the dangers and pitfalls that we all see on a daily basis. over 100,000 of these bronze awards have been achieved. the silver to be released next april. and in a world where fake news has dominated the true headlines, targeting us on what to think or buy, there will be a category called critical thinking, focusing on just that. it will teach the importance of how to substantiate, verify, and trust sources. and at the children's global media summit, the bbc also announced a scheme

teaching how to avoid fake news. up to 1000 secondary schools and sixth forms across the uk will take part, with mentoring in how to sift out fact from fiction. but the real news right now is that while there may still be a way to go for things to be totally safe online, kids are becoming more aware and maybe at some point soon will be the ones educating the grown—ups. you see, it is... how can you see, it is so small. yes, i have finished the badge. how are you feeling? woohoo! this year marks ten years since kenyans started using mobile money, known as m—pesa, now that has transformed the lives of millions of people, allowing access to financial transaction services in even the most remote parts of the country. mobile money is linked to your phone number and allows those

without a bank account to make payments via text message. even the poorest can spend and top up as little as ten shillings, that is the equivalent of ten us cents. what has been interesting is the infrastructure and services that have developed off the back of these mobile money payments. kate russell went to the slums of nairobi to meet a young family who are benefiting from the latest feature to be linked to the platform. almost half of nairobi's 6 million people live in the slums. their existence a daily grind to put food and even water on the table. the vast majority of kenyans don't have any health insurance. and in areas like this, where the poorest and often overlooked in society live, finding enough money to pay for basic healthcare can fall pretty low on the list of priorities. susan lives in this slum, the whole family, including four kids, sharing a single room. despite this struggle, she's made a commitment to save money for her baby's

healthcare using electronic wallet m-tiba. translation: when the day for me to go to the clinic arrived, i had managed to save 210 shillings in my m—tiba account. at the hospital i was able to use that for my treatment. i checked my account balance and realised that the cost was taken care of by a bonus out of my savings. the money i had saved initially remained in intact. i was really motivated to save more and more and even managed to save enough for my maternity fee. the service runs on a m—pesa. it encourages people to save by offering bonus credit incentives and ring—fencing funds to be spent only on healthcare services from one of the country's 600 registered clinics. we have seen the numbers of people not affording to pay for healthcare going down, because we encourage

them to enrol in m—tiba. we see about 500 kids in a month. which is compared to about 20—30, we were seeing about 100 children a month. previously when they got sick what did they do? you would find, most of them, they would probably use self—medication or some of them just wait until it is too late. when they go to the hospital probably the condition has gone so far away. susan's sister—in—law works as a hairdresser in the city. she wanted to help out with the new baby's medical expenses. and m—tiba allowed her to transfer money from her own m—pesa wallet. translation: we chose m-tiba because of its benefits. for example, if you save and hit a target of 100 shillings in a month, you get a bonus of 50 shillings. that is why we preferred m—tiba, because also there is no savings limit. injust over one year, m—tiba has gained over1 million

users and processed more than 100 million shillings of medical transactions. but it's also collecting data that can help clinics like 0live link plan a better provision of services and stock when funding and storage space is limited. right now we get some very good aggregated data, in terms of people's health utilisation habits, even transaction data, how much does treating maybe a malaria case cost? this helps a lot even in planning and also at policy level because then we are able to influence the policy of our country to better handle health issues. susan is just one of many kenyans who have realised the importance of preventative ca re through the targeted incentives and advice offered by m—tiba. susan is like many other susans out there, previously they have not always had this tool to be able to plan and put some money aside for their healthcare, but now, with their mobile phone,

they are able to do this. hello, welcome to the week in tech. it was the week pokemon go announced it would be adding weather effects to mimic the real world, and plans for a sad poop emoji were flushed away. and facebook released a new chat app for children under 13. messenger kids has parental controls, and facebook says it will not collect data or display ads on the service. critics warn it could get kids addicted sooner. nissan plans to launch robot taxis in japan. they will be summoned via an app from march next year. and electric black cabs were launched in london, in an attempt to improve air quality. however, some say the extra £10,000 cost to buy one may put cabbies

off going green. over 31 million users? data was leaked after third—party smartphone keyboard app ai.type left a database without password protection. it allowed access to phone numbers, e—mail addresses, and text typed using the keyboard. and finally, the mona lisa has been recreated on a microscopic scale, using a process called dna origami. the technique folds a long strand of dna into a set shape, and has previously been used to create a miniscule version of starry night by vincent van gogh. and here's one i made earlier. back at the children's global media summit, we're talking about the future of storytelling, and which technologies content makers and commissioners might be using to capture children's attention in the future. will it be vr? will it be interactive stories? will it be narratives driven by artificial intelligence?

after the panel, i caught up with one of my guests, resh sidhu, the creative director at visual effects house framestore. vr is so immersive, you can tackle these big issues. but there's also a danger with children. they are glued to their phones and tvs, but to stick them in such an immersive environment, what do you have to think about? there are so many things. when it comes to kids, there are a number of characters we have to think about, and we have to be cautious with what we're doing. there is an age limit on headsets, it's13—plus, and that's there for a reason. when we're designing an experience for our audience, it's about understanding our audience, and understanding how long an experience should be, because they get uncomfortable after a while. does it affect their behaviour? does it affect their interaction? and i think all of those things we take into consideration. and part of why we're working with goldsmith is we want to tackle

those issues head—on, in terms of a great vr experience. an amazing story can actually do a lot of good, and so we're bringing the art and the science together. what kind of vr projects are you working on for children at framestore? we recently worked with warner brothers and jk rowling on fantastic beasts and where to find them. that is an audience that starts with three—year—olds that love the wizarding world, all the way to 80—year—old grandparents. and ultimately, what great storytelling is about is taking someone to the heart of the story, and that is really, really powerful. is it more than just vr, though? are we fooling ourselves to think that the future of storytelling is virtual reality? there are many other technologies — should we be thinking about all of those? since the time of cavemen, we've been wired to tell stories. what's happening with vr is it becomes another medium, another platform on which to tell a story. it's never going to replace a book, it's never going to replace going to the movies, and watching an amazing star wars film with your parents.

it's never going to happen. but what it does allow us, as storytellers, as artists, as directors, is a blank canvas — another canvas to help engage people. i mean, why do we tell stories? we want to show somebody another world. we want to bring it to life. we want to scare them, we want to educate them. all of that is storytelling, and what vr allows us is this amazing new platform, that has a profound effect on how we feel. so vr adds this new layer of excitement, and i think it's part of the future of storytelling. it's not the future, it's part of the future. here is a nice little ar app for kids. you download and print off your favourite character

from cbeebies, colour it in however you like, and then you pick up your tablets, and look. there is the duck. you can draw other characters, as well. for example, here is my favourite, gojetters' xuli, who has the power and the speed, and she zooms away on the vroomster. not that i'm a fan or anything. and, from some pretty decent visual effects there, to some absolutely top—of—the—range visual effects now, in the form of one of the biggest films of the year, paddington 2. don'tjust take my word for it. ask rotten tomatoes, where it scored 100%. we sat down with the man who is responsible for bringing paddington from peru to the big screen, for a world—exclusive look at how he did it. parents, spoiler alert. we're about to take paddington apart. what's this? this is london. one of the key areas that we began with is previs, or pre—visualisation. it's working in an extremely low—fi fashion, to be able to practically explore camera angles, moves,

using — working with animators who have a familiarity with paddington himself. filming without paddington, it makes the process extremely abstract, that's for sure. and so we employ a variety of techniques. for the best part, there is a stand—in called lauren, who is about paddington‘s height. and she'll give us, everyone on the set, a brilliant insight into paddington‘s presence. you don't want to make the work in post very difficult or expensive, by having to paint lots out, so you try and minimise what is in the place of paddington on the shot. i think the things that are most difficult are where paddington is interacting with objects or people in the plate.

so you always need somebody to do that, to create either the — you know, touch the cloth that's going to be touched. there's statistic that, if you put all the man hours together, it would be 75 years of someone's life to do all the visual effects on paddington. so that sort of gives you a bit of perspective on how much work is involved. fundamental was that he lives in — that you would believe him. he had to be hyperrealistic, he had to live in a real space. you know, we're always very careful to not reveal too much whites of the eyes, to have eyes that sort of look too cartoony, to contain all the gestures. often an animator will first pick up paddington, and they'll go for very obvious statements, and paddington is not about that. you take it all away. it's all in what's absolutely necessary. and it's a sort of small shift of the brow here, and a dart there, that tells you he's thinking. and i think, you know, once you get into that, the small, then you can start

engineering these sort of — carefully placing these sort of beats. that's when it starts to feel genuine, and live and breathe as a real character, and something that you can hopefully fall in love with. the train chase obviously, as a particular set piece, was inordinately complicated. but, even within the prison, you know, the ceilings have been extended, and the atrium. there's a huge amount of set extension. when we're lifting off in the balloon, and he's escaping with knuckles, the entire prison exterior is a fabrication that is cgi. simple little scenes like the one where he travels through the prison, it's transforming, and you're seeing his effect on the place, and everyone is making cakes, that was a massively complicated sequence, because of the very artisan sort of way

in which we wanted to make this prison transform, and that sort of michel gondry—like musical appearance to all the things. it took many, many — a lot of planning, with many passes on motion control, back and forwards, an exploration of what would work, doing things on and off. almost infinite possibility, that we needed to play through. but no, there's a lot of augmentation, always, through the film. i think probably almost every shot you could point to something and go, 0k, well, that photograph has been inserted in that frame, and that sky has been changed there, or that bridge didn't exist, you know. and there's a lot of that stuff, all very understated. howling. 0w. thank you, mr brown.

and that's it from the children's global media summit. did you enjoy it, dm? yes, me too. don't forget we live on twitter @bbcclick, and on facebook, where you can find all the latest tech news throughout the week. thanks for watching, and we will see you soon. well, after a very brief mild spell, those temperatures are coming down again for the next few days, and into the start of the weekend. and, for thursday, it's low pressure which dominates the scene. tightly packed isoba rs across the country meaning fairly windy, and they'll be blowing in lots of showers, particularly to western areas of the country. and these showers will be of a wintry mix during the overnight period and first thing on thursday. some snow to the higher ground of scotland, northern ireland, northern england, wales,

maybe the south—west of england, and some wet sleetiness down to lower levels for a time, too. so, first thing on thursday, we are again looking at an ice risk, particularly from the midlands, north wales northwards, so watch out for these. there could even be some lying snow around on some of the higher routes, for example the pennines and across scotland. but we start thursday off on quite an unsettled note. it's going to be windy, particularly across the west, maybe gales in exposure, showers here and wintry over high ground and wintry showers in parts of wales, in towards north—west england. ice to watch out for, too. largely dry to start in eastern and south—eastern parts. there'll be some early sunshine around, but it will be quite chilly. same too east of the pennines, eastern scotland. but further west, loads of showers and again some heavy and even sleetiness down to lower levels as well. and then, through the day, very little change. it stays blustery, i think the winds slowly easing down through the day.

they'll continue to be strong across the north, and certainly the south—west, with gales here. plenty of showers with wintriness again over higher ground and central and eastern parts of the country should be drier, with some sunshine. but notice the temperatures down on wednesday's values, in single figures for all. it's going to feel cold if you add on that wind. then, as we head on in towards friday, we open the floodgates again to the arctic, as this area of low pressure moves across in towards scandinavia. so it does mean a cold, frosty start in places for friday, and also a risk of some ice. but i think, generally speaking, friday is looking like being a quieter day. we should have more in the way of sunshine around, lighter winds for many. still fairly breezy around the coasts, where we'll see wintry showers at times. now, that cold air is with us obviously through friday and into the start of the weekend. but then, for the second half of the weekend, we'll start to see this plume of milder air slowly making inroads. so it's a cold start saturday — again watch out for ice. some sunshine around

through the morning. i think that's slowly fading as more cloud piles in from the west, maybe with a few showers, and it's going to be another cold day. for sunday, though, there is more cloud generally. i think sunshine will be very few and far between, and there will be a few showers, but that milder air slowly making inroads. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: donald trump lashes out at his own party — after the republica ns' shock defeat in alabama. a lot of republicans feel differently. they are happy with how this turned out. but as a leader of the party, i would have liked to have had the seat. the ayes to the right — 309. the noes to the left — 305. the british government loses a key vote in parliament on brexit — just before a crucial eu summit. and we have a special report from the democratic republic of congo where violence could be pushing the country into famine.

and — up, up and away — how prisoners in the uk used remote—controlled drones to smuggle drugs inside.