business news live from berlin u.s. allies react with shock to the latest resignation from the trumpet ministration defense secretary jim matheson quits in protest over trump's abrupt pullout from syria he says it sends the wrong message to america's friends and emboldens its folks also coming up thousands of hungry ariens march in budapest capping a week of protests there angry at recent reforms by the picture or bomb the government. and germany marks the end of an era as it closes its last underground

coal mine we meet the miners who powered the german industry from deep below. the world. i'm calling aspen welcome to the program u.s. allies including germany have appealed for clarity over washington's foreign policy this comes after defense secretary jim mattis resigned in protest at president trump's decision to withdraw american forces from syria that move happened without consultation from the pentagon or u.s. allies now the search is on for a successor to mattis why they regarded as the last check on the president's unilateral foreign policy decisions. here with secretary of defense james much as has been widely viewed as a stabilizing force in u.s. president donald trump's cabinet. many had hoped that the four star marine general

would help the president make good policy decisions on matters of international and domestic security but now it's come to an end due to fundamental differences of opinion the defense secretary says he'll be leaving the administration by the end of february in his resignation letter the defense secretary appeared to criticize trump's america first foreign policy not to stress the importance of the u.s. maintaining strong partnerships such as nato and the international coalition fighting the so-called islamic state in syria james mattis knows the situation in syria and afghanistan well he thinks it's wrong to remove u.s. troops from these places or to cut their numbers by half both republicans and democrats expressed their worries after mattis resignation secretary mabus was one of the few symbols a few items of strength and stability in this administration republican senator marco rubio commented on matters decision on twitter just read general mattis resignation letter he wrote it makes it abundantly clear that we're headed towards

a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation damage our alliances and empower our adversaries. now trump needs a new defense secretary who followed the president's line. the resignation of matters is likely to have a major effect on u.s. foreign policy to talk more about that i'm joined now by paul soni the national security reporter from the washington post good evening to you paul let's talk about syria is president trump right in saying that someone else can continue that fight there now that american troops will be pulling out. you know remains to be seen the french have said that they are interested in keeping their troops there and no one has said what will happen to the fate of the american air campaign which has been the primary mode by which the pentagon has defeated isis in addition to backing local kurdish fighters on the ground so it remains to be seen whether

anyone will fill the void and help sort of back the kurdish militia that has been the american partner on the ground or if essentially it will leave a power vacuum opening up the possibility that turkey iran bashar al assad syria's leader and russia will fill the void and let's talk about the balance of power there in the region how will the withdrawal of u.s. troops from syria for example the u.s. is standing and how this power play will happen there in the region yeah well. the u.s. had long backed this on the ground ineffectually essentially rolled back all of the territory the physical territory that isis had captured in the country and the territory that i said controlled had been rolled back it's widely agreed that tens of thousands of isis fighters still were remain in the country and in iraq which is why both depending on in the state department have said as recently as last week that the fight against isis is not over president trump however has

declared the fight against isis over and demanded that the two thousand u.s. troops there who are aiding that kurdish militia be withdrawn which has created a sense of. you know insecurity among allies about how when when do you agree that a conflict is over how do you agree on what victory consists. is the groundwork being laid for either resurgence of isis or handing over power in the region to russia and iran what about those kurdish forces what becomes of them now because they've been so heavily reliant on the u.s. . yeah i think they're extremely worried if you look at the messages coming out of turkey turkey's defense minister said that you know he is interested in having and centrally military operation against them turkey sees kurdish individuals in the north of syria as essentially terrorists they have had military skirmishes before in northern syria which actually detracted from the campaign against islamic

state so i think they're they know that they're in peril this move puts them in peril and i think that is a serious concern by a lot of american military leaders at the pentagon and abroad that these are the fighters that are thankfully on the ground along with american troops helped ensure this defeat of the islamic state and now they might feel or end up being sold down the river also named the national security reporter from the washington post thank you very much thanks for having me. and staying in the u.s. now where the senate has begun voting on president trump's spending bill and what is seen as a last ditch attempt to avert a partial government shutdown trump has been calling for a change in senate rules in order to pass measures that would pay for a border wall with mexico or as things stand in the chamber it's highly unlikely that trump will secure the sixty votes he needs to have his bill passed. now the some of the stories making news around the world thousands of pro

independence supporters have gathered in barcelona they're angry because the spanish cabinet held a meeting in the city earlier hardline pro independence supporters clashed with police dozens of people were injured and twelve were arrested separatist leaders are vowing further protests in the coming days. relief for passengers at london's gatwick airport flights have resumed there after a second short shut down planes were grounded friday evening due to a fresh drone citing an earlier suspension lasted some thirty six hours then a pair of the devices were spotted over the air for. angry opposition supporters rallied in the congolese capital kinshasa after the electoral commission delayed sunday's scheduled poll by a week protesters warned they may attempt to topple the president if voting is postponed again the hotly contested election will now take place on december thirtieth due to a delay in getting voting materials to polling stations. people are gathering in

the hungary in capital budapest for another night of protest over labor rules and corruption the rally is the latest in a string of demonstrations which started last week by controversial labor reforms backed by prime minister viktor orban the desi party the protests have since come to include in a ray of grievances such as limits on the free press and increasing corruption. and joining us from budapest is g.w. correspondent fanny fish are welcome fanny what's the situation where you are on the ground this evening we understand thousands have marched through budapest once again today. and you may think actually this protest is over because you don't see anyone behind the right not the question square but they just changed a couple of minutes ago when people started to march across from the parliament over to the palace of the hunger and president to sign that very controversial overtime that you need a labor law that takes

a lot of people to the street because they feel what the government calls a voluntary overtime is actually something that threatens them to do over time getting paid the situation in hungary right now is very much jaws the emotions are very much charged this comes to this law however the protest is still quite small in size a couple of thousand people marched through a pass and it's very peace was valid this is what people actually hope that we will not see pictures as we have seen last weekend the protest actually turned violent. we've heard prime minister viktor orban his claim that these protests have been partly stoked by activists paid by the hungry and born billionaire george soros is there any truth to those rumors. well that's what the government pretty much always says when there's a protest actually i'm in fact some billboard sat shorrosh or soros playing like a parody on that rough rate by the government because this is the main name

rhetoric that they use whenever they are protests however let me tell you when i went to the countryside yesterday and i spoke to a man who is working in the shipping industry he needs to work really a lot of overtime he says he didn't have to do anything the source in fact he didn't have to do anything any political party but was just a very ordinary man who is concerned that he has to work more and more as there is a lack of skilled workers which is a fact in hungary and is not going to get paid accordingly so the frustration of the people is real and they have enough to want to take to the streets they have enough that they feel the government says one thing but actually the result that they feel is completely different. i'd finish are in budapest for us there thank you very much now here in germany the nation's last underground coal mine has closed for two hundred years coal was the driving force behind the economy dominating industry infrastructure and people's

day to day lives but the reign of king cole is coming to an end today hundreds of miners gathered at an underground ceremony marking the closure in the for value german president from baltar shimei overseeing the last lump of coal mine to the prosperous shaft which was opened in the nineteenth century. the shutdown is happening because the world is moving to where newble resources such as solar and wind power is still the miners of the last mine in the western german industrial region were sad to see it go. these are some of germany's last coal miners. many of them have given decades of their lives to the job in four shifts a day twelve hundred meters deep shifting thousands of tonnes of bituminous coal sitting in a no blue better known as. can clearly remember the first time he went down in a pit cage thirty years ago. the first time i did it i was still an

apprentice so the training supervisor was there you learn where the escape routes were in case something happened but it was still overwhelming. even. the prosperity. was once highly productive now it's the site of a massive sell off everything is being dismantled and sent back over ground most of the machines here will be sold on to turkey or china it is not feeling a bit melancholic because we're the last of our kind. used to mining coal for years now but it's difficult. to finish mining one coal field i know that in two weeks you move on to mining the next one. but those days are over a winding down everywhere and that herds. it's thanks to the

coal mines that the rural valley region became the most densely populated area in germany the peterhead frames the coking plants and the steel works have left their mark the kiosks and miners housing next to the pits are testament to that there's hardly a city or town here in the region that doesn't boast a foreman street or pittman street works manager you're going croaker has already had to close down two mines the prosper honey all mine will be his third and last. three big events take place in. my life this year as i close my last mine germany stops producing black coal and at the end of the year i'll retire i don't think anyone can experience more emotions in one go than that. the curtain has fallen on coal mining and fifteen thousand locals have turned out to give it a fitting send off there's twenty of melancholy in the air as traditional clubs miners choirs pick men mine rescue teams and foreman march by.

the whole tradition of mining itself the roar region it's family every time a pick closes down it's like losing someone in the family. once more they sing the song of german miners. these days it's the soundtrack of the region. the last miners at the prosper hi neal coal plant will continue to wind down operations until the end of next year after that most of them will retire. brady has been covering today's closure she spoke with dr michelle call from the german mining museum for more half of the letter that dr fahrenkopf

the last mines in the rural valley are closing what was the significance of mining in germany. you know. it's no exaggeration to say that without black coal mining there wouldn't be a modern world. made industrialization possible. for example modern energy providing. we can also say that the world became bright and colorful thanks to black coal. think about black coal gas and dyes made of cool. it's the basic substance that made the sort of modern world possible that we know today. in fact. what is the mind closure means for the local people who worked here for so long. i think. for the miners themselves today is a very sad day. in germany we've directed this process very

responsibly. done with an eye towards social equity and the long term. we have a structural transformation that lasted thirty or forty years behind us. phasing out black call we took care that the region which was so dependent on heavy industry has other alternatives even the educational sector is especially large in the rural region and a whole series of modern industries have set up shop here. the service sector is also relatively strong. it's been a long term organized transformation. and it's been socially just which is very important for germany instruments we try to avoid making large numbers of minus unemployed all at once. they get chief mint.

dot com i don't know how important is closing mines for combat in climate change. or is this about saving state subsidies for the coal industry. the decision to discontinue the mining of black coal was based mainly on economic concerns. it's no secret that coal mines in europe which have to be very far underground were simply not competitive with other monts throughout the world. for decades since the end of the one nine hundred fifty s. we in germany and europe have known that one is not any different. so the decision to discontinue production in germany is a political decision that isn't dominated by climate change i don't. mean it is.

under its feet and i'm shifting gears now to the animal kingdom and the world's only albino is celebrating her first day of freedom her name is alba and she spent a year being nursed back to health by indonesian conservative conservationists they discovered her in captivity in a village there and ever since she's in weight and has regained her confidence so scientists released her into the borneo jungle on friday all but mediately thoughts at home in the wild as you can see climbing high into the canopy to forage for. sports now by munich visit i'm shocked frankfurt and saturday's stand out buddhist leader clash hoping to end the year on a high note it was looking bleak for byron coach nico kovacs just a few weeks ago but the variance have turned things around their last game before

the mid-season break. on familiar ground. nico kovach has reason to smile before a resurgent and confident buyer and visit his former club frankfurt that if it means champions have been the league's strongest side away from home thus far a total of eighteen goals on the road have helped keep my iron close to the top of the table but frankfurt have the potential to disrupt by and recent return to form forward look at yo bitch is joint top scorer in the league with twelve goals having coached him last season knows yo bitch is a threat and even hinted at a future by and bid to sign him this is when he stays on track then he'll become a willed class striker and will play for a willed class club if he stays healthy and stays in the right frame of mind he's got everything in a week or a world class club because. frankfurt are a decent force at home beating labor coups into one last weekend giving them seven

home victories in their last eight matches in all competitions. we don't possession of the ball like by and do but i believe we have a chance to showcase our quality. however the record champions have just won four in a row in the but as leader in haven't lost a competitive match at frankfurt comair to baker arena since march two thousand and ten. over to christophe now in a french oil giants punished for taking bribes that's right call and it seems to be a reoccurring problem a court in paris snapped half a million euros of fines on french oil company. after finding a guilty of paying bribes to win a huge gas contract in around back in one thousand nine hundred seventy votes as the top paid thirty million dollars in bribes to middlemen for help in securing the lucrative southpark gas concession five years ago to tata had to pay almost four

hundred million dollars to seventy similar case before it went to trial in the united states. and staying with commodities the price of brant crude recovered slightly on friday after having slipped to its lowest level in fifteen months earlier all prices have been steadily sliding for weeks dropping more than twenty five dollars since the beginning of october when they were hovering at around eighty dollars investors had hoped supply cuts from opec would prop up prices but the cartel of oil producing countries is finding that easier said than done. earlier this month the oil cartel opec and its partner countries agreed to cut production to one point two million barrels a day from january the regime to reduce supply and boost prices the price of a barrel of bread has been dragged down by a combination of factors the global macro economic outlook isn't shining on the oil industry and this week's rate hike from the us federal reserve has exacerbated investor fears of an economic slowdown but oversupply remains the biggest challenge

for the industry increasing crude production in the u.s. which is now a top producer worldwide makes it more difficult for opec to control the global market. so while the downward trend of oil prices may be welcome news for drivers it spells trouble for opec an inability to influence price may mean its effectiveness as a cartel is diminishing. earlier we asked spencer well soil market analyst and i guess market in london where the opec countries were looking to strike a balance deal or if they were just off to maximize profits they are trying to to to find the right balance they would probably like the price to be somewhere around seventy or eighty dollars per barrel compared with the current price which is fifty three however even just two months ago there was worried that the market was overheating the prices it six people were already was going to hit the hundreds and

opec a worried about that one hundred number because then that stimulates competition from from other fuels and actually back in june because of the hard price opec released their production constraints because they're worried about the price going to high so there's been an incredible change in the markets in just two months. on market analyst spencer welsh speaking there now for a few hours of looks like former nissan chief carlos go on would be getting out of jail but before the gate even opened for him japan's state prosecutor's office has issued a fresh warrant for his detention prosecutors now say that going dumb to millions of his own personal debts on tony's on accounts he was originally arrested on nov nineteenth that prosecutors allege going declared far too little income and personally and rich himself using company capital. social start ups are on the rise let's talk about that the market for care services

is after all huge now right now in germany about two and a half million people are in need of care and by twenty three d. that number could rise to three and a half million most will want to live at home for as long as possible and that's where the mo buy a car care startup via comes in it connects caregivers with those in need and help in their daily lives via a smartphone app. yes look the thing is cool and antonia knows what she wants she founded her own company called care shift in berlin three years ago via its digital platform the firm places regular caregivers in homes of elderly or sick people who need support better idea was born of necessity and i think that will have a castle in mine something i founded care ship together with my brother after a very personal experience in our own family went out of the blue our grandmother suddenly needed care and we couldn't find a suitable hoper or support for her kind of pass unnoticed with some physio. helper

like you and stitch for example he's one of about eight hundred freelancers who know work for care ship a stroke left her son paralyzed on one side the woman in her early seventy's can no longer do many things or self so she went looking for help. let's get before it's clearly a question of helping people to help themselves so that the entire household can continue to be managed independently if they exchanged a few adult she pays him twenty euros an hour and twenty percent of that goes to care ship for her trust is key but once you've gotten used to someone you want that person all the time because otherwise you end up having to explain everything to someone new every day i really don't want that slow. berlin is still a hot spot for startups although it's grown increasingly difficult to find office space for employees among company founders here women are still

a minority but that didn't deter antonia about here and. she's raised millions in capital to expand her business. when setting up a firm she says the most important thing is to stick to your guns. but also believes women and men are a little different in one respect. it's risky to say i'm quitting my job i'm just going to plow ahead and i think women are a little more cautious in that respect. but that's the wrong approach and we just need many more role models who show that women can found companies to be successful that it actually no longer makes a difference whether you're a man or a woman. care ship has yet to turn a profit but antonio about hasn't but that shake our confidence she certain that sooner or later she's going to achieve her goals. and

a quick reminder of the top story we're following for you have this hour u.s. president donald trump is losing another key cabinet member defense secretary jim mattis is stepping down after growing increasingly disillusioned with mr trump's policy has resigned after trump decided to withdraw u.s. troops from syria. you're watching the news coming to you live from berlin the day is next don't go away.

i've been. rescuing sea horses in greece. off the greek the insulin of cauchy to give their lives a colony of tiny sea creatures that are threatened by ghost nets lost or discarded fishing nets. now volunteers are retrieving the nets and helping to preserve the seahorses marine have attacked. him sixty minutes on d. w. . the fast pace of life in the digital no shift has the

lowdown on the web showing new developments and providing useful information the wittiest finds and interviews with makers and users. should in forty five minutes. in a timeless way discover the volatile subject about house world starts january thirteenth on. our torah is to. say that. a hundred german streets on the dollar. i don't think that. i guess sometimes i am being whipped for that reason to have a think the printer jamming culture of looking at the stereotype of crack indians

think it's a beautiful country that i don't. need to see the papers grammar of their own. it's cold out there. i'm right joe join me to meet the gentleman from d.w. post. he was considered the adults in the room and a stabilizing force at the white house now the man who once stood beside the president is giving him the cold shoulder the fence secretary jim mattison brain resigns in protest of president trump's decision to pull american troops from syria top democrats republicans and nato allies are concerned i'm karl naslund in berlin and this is the day.