headlines this hour u.s. tech giants are being sued for allegedly abetting in the deaths of children in kobold mines in congo parents of the children say the companies had all the means to prevent the deaths of us democrats use their house majority to impeach donald trump though his support remains high and the us president himself is bullish. this was hardest to preach is a political suicide march for the democratic party underscored in the u.k. is under fire after the children were given a homework assignment on the manchester arena bombing in which they had to reflect on where the terrorists should be think given plus a record number of journalists will attend russian president vladimir putin's

annual american media conference today last year's event lasted for almost 4 hours . hello there good morning just gone 10 here in moscow you watching r.t. international now u.s. tech giants among them apple microsoft and google are facing a lawsuit from 14 congolese parents and children human rights groups accuse the companies of being complicit in the death of children who were working in cobalt mines in the company's supply chains cobalt is in high demand as it's widely used in batteries for devices such as smart phones here are some of the testimonies from the children who for legal reasons have all been given the same name a word of warning there you might find some of the footage upsetting. the chamber ceiling collapsed on people in a cold mine john doe 5 was one of only 2 survivors john doe 3 was living in the

mine area on his motorbike loaded with 3 bags of cobbled he was hit by a large cobbled transport truck and his leg was amputated after 2 weeks of working john doe well never was severely injured he was 14 years old when he was grassed in the mine well the families and children are seeking compensation for forced labor negligence and emotional distress some more say claim to they suffered serious injuries while crawling through tunnels or carrying heavy loads as we saw saskia taylor has more on the story. how far would you go to make your fortune hire a child a child kill a child these are the questions the world's most famous tech giants will be in court as part of the landmark legal case that's off to a human rights organization allege that complicit in the injury and deaths of hundreds if not thousands of children in the democratic republic of congo all to

feed the wallets insatiable appetite for the very latest gadgets defendants ample google will microsoft tesla are knowingly benefiting from aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children and democratic republic of congo to mind called the young children are not merely being forced to work full time extremely dangerous mining jobs at the expense of their educations and futures they're being regularly mean been killed by tunnel collapses and other known hazards common to call gold mining in the d.r. see the case has been brought forward on behalf of 14 congolese families 6 of who have lost children walking and mines the document makes 5 harrowing ranting with stories of broken spines paralysis and people buried alive and collapsed tunnels children as young as 6 forced to walk up to 24 hour shifts using tools the human rights group brandt's as from the stone age many of these children while also

trafficked. and while the latest i phone retells around $1000.00 these children were being paid as little as 2 for that troubles if they survive the watching day i've never encountered documented more severe a similar. in the elocution of income between the top of the supply chain and the bottom it's dad disconnect that makes this perhaps the worst injustice of slavery and child exploitation that i've seen in my 2 decades research what could be was these lives though coble apparently a metal that is essential to those and lithium batteries found in every smart phone every laptop every electric car and as the tech boom continues to monta has sought

the d.l.c. as one of the poorest countries in the world but also a mineral gold mine has been only too willing to power at this for a shift market it produces around 60 percent of the walls coble supply mining the thought of it by hand now some of those giant corporations which signed a contract with these mining companies say they have no idea what was going on those people in silicon valley can't be big readers than because this has been news before further the horrors of the plight of these children has been widely reported in the media defendants all have knowledge of the forced labor dangerous conditions and extremely low p. provided to child coble minors then you have reports like the one by amnesty international back in 2016 which documented how child cobalt minors were over exposed to hazardous chemicals while walking with no protective gear and basic hand tools apple's promise a year later it's not use mines that didn't provide professional quit meant must

have gotten lost in translation even worse than just standing idly by though pretending you are all the good guy indeed taking a major peach from the corporate cover of god defendants apple alphabet dell and microsoft have joined in support of modal mining programs and d r c to create the false impression that they have acted to prevent the known horrors of kobold mining in the deer sea by children but when you are raking in hundreds of billions every year what are a couple of lives over 9000 miles away from you though of course though have you. i believe they really do care people should have values companies are nothing more than a collection of people and so by extension all companies should have values you know apple has always been at the core about changing the world it's no coincidence that a company dedicated to free flow of information was founded great here in the us as an american company we cherish the value some freedoms that are allowed us to grow

and serve so many users we always knew that we were losing our money now was of our life and our eyesight technology but how could we know it was costing lives to. live there we did ask the companies in question to comment on the allegations they said that the reports of misconduct are always investigated with appropriate action taken they also told us to that they are committed to being responsible when sourcing materials but we also heard from a journalist in the day r c he claims that the companies know exactly what they do. they know if it will the system is not good in congo and they are taking profit from this of course they know who will dots the most of demining the mind coming from the kobol it's all gold or any kind of minerals from the instant they nor the government is less territory their core tribute directly to the death for 500 millions of people

walking illegally kids walking illegally 'd into mine on 100 percent i think 80 percent of those mean it was coming from illegal way and in a very difficult area we can even call it the bloods minerals and they did they have a direct responsibility on those blood mean it was because the i don't want to buy and they want using it by knowing it which condition of those mining mine is extracted from the us that is the place where we are talking about prices off dispy people directly from the big companies. u.s. house of representatives has voted to impeach donald trump democratic representatives use their majority to impeach the president on 2 articles abuse of power and also obstruction of congress where the president seems to be concerned. the 230 the nays are 197 present is

one. article one is adopting. the way the i this was partisan. is a political suicide march for the democrat party have you seen my polls of the last 4 way. or tom does have a point there because according to the latest polls he's gaining more support from the public since october just after the democrats started their impeachment inquiry against him his approval ratings have grown by 6 percent and at the same time the number of people who think that he should be impeached is declining from just over half in october to 46 percent now it's now up to the republican dominated senate to decide whether to remove trump from office however mitch mcconnell who leads the majority there said that that is unlikely he anticipates it passes and just like in the house which voted almost entirely along party lines after 8 hours of debate

with only 3 democrats saying no to a pinch move. this process has been partisan vindictive dishonest the president's actions seriously jeopardize not only america's national security but security of our closest allies this investigation was unfair the articles of impeachment are not based on facts but instead are entirely politically motivated president trump abuse the power of his office for his own personal and political gain history books will tell of this day. it will tell of a purely partisan effort to remove the president of the united states i think history will will show pretty quickly pretty quickly in the november 2020 election that this is one of the most stupid errors ever made by a political party because what they're really showing to the world at large and to americans at home is that democrats don't care about the law this

a peaceful process was really only meant to deal with treason a capital offense bribery a serious offense and other high crimes and misdemeanors and this process to date is totally corrupted witnesses you know the republicans in the house wanted certain witnesses to come forward they were arbitrarily denied before it was a capricious process the democrats are handing trump and conservatives and disruptors an unbelievable set of arguments for a landslide wave election in 2021 the myth is that the senate will now throw out the impeachment case democrats to have a plan b. when it comes to undermining don't trump they are ready to resort to some old weapons to blunt the will report and the more pain explains. difficult to understand the purpose of last night's impeachment vote why should the upper house of the u.s. congress pass judgment on donald trump when democrats already have a plan b. the house judiciary committee says it will continue to investigate donald trump

regardless of the outcome so what else is left to investigate well the house judiciary committee is saying that they will resurrect the dead i.e. the moeller report this will give them a chance to get back to their roups and bring up that old russian collusion agenda and they can get the impeachment hearings going all over again the public version of the miller report contains numerous rejections these rule 6 redactions withhold information about president trump's knowledge of his campaign's contacts with russian officials and wiki leaks and therefore bear on whether the president committed impeachable offenses yes same old same old even though bob muller found no evidence of trump russia collusion it's all about belief these days i believe even though i don't have the facts to prove it they wanted to elect president trump i will always believe this that he agreed that if he got elected he would lift those sanctions while maybe instead of just believing she should look into some

very solid facts like the recent ruling from the foreign intelligence surveillance court regarding the surveillance against carter page now that's the very carter page who is transforming the foreign policy adviser just the very next day michael horowitz inspector general of the us department of justice were due to the f.b.i. for failures during the early stages of the russian probe he revealed 17 different omissions and inaccuracy in the carter page warrant applications and furthermore they include in dr documents and concealed information there were so many errors. we couldn't reach a conclusion or to make a determination on what motivated those failures although we did not find documentary. testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or the missing information and the failures that occurred now james coleman was the f.b.i.

director at the time of the investigation it limited that his bureau was sloppy and how they investigated donald trump and his team furthermore the infamous ca which started the entire russia probe was not as important as it was made out to be it was one of a bunch of different facts to resemble to a part of the court it was the one that convinced the lawyers that they had enough now with that added to the pile to go forget the question is it seems that you were minimizing the role of the of this field if i was sorry that i did that now call me also said that he does not care how credible steele's allegations were you conclude the reporting from steele was bunk they concluded there were significant questions about the reliability of some of the sub source reporting that should have been included in the renewals when i reached the president i briefed him on a small part of it that i told him i didn't know whether it was true or not i didn't care and in fact he didn't care about the investigation at all in general i didn't know what they learned from the some source i didn't know the particulars of

the investigation isn't that investigations this is an investigation of the campaign of the man who is the president of the united states while the narrative that donald trump colluded with russia in order to win the 2016 elections hasn't really panned out however the narrative that donald trump has been in appropriately investigated by people who have an agenda of trying to bring down his presidency is getting stronger by the day now some people might look at this case and say to the democrats stop meeting a dead horse just let this russia go already but it could be more dangerous to try to rivals than they realize it could be a case of stop beating this dead horse before it comes back to life turns around and sinks its teeth into you. r.t. new york. from some patient could be one of the topics raised during the russian president's press conference later today in what's become something of an end of year tradition here in russia vladimir putin will face

a grilling from the media and of previous sessions ready to go by to the president could be fielding questions for a few hours is a trained killer looks at what could be in store. christmas is just around the corner so probably stocking up with gifts is the challenge that is on everyone's mind right now well unless you are a journalist with a badge that gives you access to a very special event this thursday the big ad you all are putin q. and a well for such reporters the number one challenge is to get noticed and to somehow leave a sea of colleagues behind by the way if you thought that it all happens behind the famous walls over there in this case you're wrong welcome to moscow's world trade

center this is where very soon the q. and a will begin now let me explain how it works mr putin will be sitting at a table lone in front of a massive audience holding up black cards for 5 years i've been using a little r. t. logo a bit further on to the president's left his press secretary usually he is the one who chooses who goes next but sometimes mr putin picks someone out himself and these are the kind of moments we always watch out for if you let them do is complain of their ice or a woman holding a sign this isn't bye bye ok go for it turn the heat up. oh my god sorry with age comes eyesight issues to distribute these are just translation difficulties i scared everyone my sign today but actually it's has by which means grandfather. so what are the chances of getting picked

29 things press or sets a record a total of 1895 journalists taken part over the last 70 years vladimir putin. at the time to answer an average of 58 questions per q. and a so i've done the math the chances are about 3 percent only 3 percent that you get to ask a question not the best of all odds but. the longest event lasted for 4 hours and 40 minutes and usually it's never less than 3 in the several hours of constantly jumping on your chair waving your black card trying to stand out from the crowd and get the president's attention i'll tell you what that's quite an experience anyway do stay tuned for the show because it could really shake things up a little bit before the holidays from pushing the stock markets up or down to causing a real geopolitical stir just one example it is right in that building

that fly out of our proof once back in 25th thing called donald trump a bright talented man you know the rest of the story in a prank that well the press conference does get under way 12 noon time and of course we will have live coverage. martyr means being in some ways similar. to. the traditional jewish we often acting in other words if my dear and it is about the.

mobile occupation the flexible physically for studious articulate and so on then jews were the 1st modern that was the specialization. all of us will hoops that have been able to learn from their were babies but so it's a behavior that appears even in deaf and blind babies even if you've never heard or seen love that you will love if your tickles by your parents. and then we learn how to use this in a more complex way i'm one of the things that we learn is to how to join in with love to contagiously to love and somebody else loves even if you don't know why they're laughing.

welcome back to marty now israel has banned christians and garza from visiting holy sites such as bethlehem and jerusalem during christmas there are reportedly around 1200 christians in gaza and last christmas 700 were granted permits to travel to the holy cities. as more. with christmas almost upon us some peoples faced of plans are having to be aborted because of israel over this holiday season it's banned christians in gaza from visiting some sites that for them embody exactly what christmas is about basically hanway jesus christ was born and here in jerusalem where he preached was crucified and resurrected after consulting with all security bodies in israel it was decided that this year departure permits through the allenby crossing will be issued to goals and christians after christmas however it is important to emphasize that every request received from the palestinian civil

committee in the gaza strip is checked individually and accepted after a security diagnosis procedure the move by these radio forty's is unusual as typically commission is given every easter and christmas we have to petition for travel through the palestinian civil affairs ministry who in turn poses our applications to the israeli side with and wait for a long time to receive an obituary decision of approval or rejection without further explanation there are almost a 1000 christians living in gaza ever since hamas took control in gaza israel has cracked down on travel if a few are gazans are being given permission to make pilgrimages in 201-8700 were given permission to visit holy sites of a christmas this year the number is 0 the decision has been condemned by the israeli based organization which protects the rights of palestinian residents the persistent disrespect shown for the needs of the palestinian civilian population

stands in violation of fundamental human rights and also points to an ongoing into speak ation of israeli separation policy between the 2 parts of the palestinian territory gaza and the west bank there's been little international reaction to the christmas battle for example the us state department which prides itself on protecting religious freedoms around the globe has one main. silent let's ask people here in jerusalem what they think about the ban do you think it's a diversion because everybody should be able to visit to the holiest places. to reach to the sickness and where. they want to be. given the christian jews even moved there are muslims many people be coming from there for christmas and going. back with it's a war plays and all that everybody muslim and christian this suffering goes up because of the war saw there are no way is that. history to be

deprived from your own religion and that's why. they are invading everything. including religion including your privacy including you believe christmas is supposed to be about bringing people together but israel it seems has turned it into an occasion to keep people apart. artie jerusalem. a school in the u.k. has found itself in the headlines after a 12 year old pupils were asked to imagine they were the parents of a victim of the 2017 manchester arena terror attack they were then asked to write an essay for homework responding to the point that altera should be forgiven some parents were outraged i think this is simon is absolutely disgusting for all thor's of different reasons it seems to me to be brainwashing the kids i have not let my daughter attend school today until i can find out more about what the school is

teaching our children. or the school since apologized and cancelled the task there we discuss the issues raised with political commentator and new york observer columnist and very walker and also chief executive of the ramadan foundation u.k. mohammed. for a victim's family to be able to have the compassion to forgive is a very personal decision but to try to change the narrative somehow the altera should be forgiven i actually think it's really dangerous the idea that terrorists can be rehabilitated is often not true and i think what i would have told her diaper the teacher in our school is asked pops the pupils to write a letter to parents to better understand the impacts of terrorism and there is a real concern that if you try to adopt language that we see in this particular axis that somehow will legitimize these terrorism and their violence and say to young children in this country that you somehow can forgive terrorist i don't think

you can forgive terrorist if you kill innocent life then you should for political aims then you should stay in prison for the rest of your life look time and time again we are told that the only way to push forward community relations is to try to understand why the terrorists the terrorists no no no no what you have to understand is why your neighbor is being victimized by those terrorists whether it be muslim families who are concerned for their safety after after the terrorist attacks or whether it's the people being directly affected and we is. british citizens should be really looking at the fact what can we do to keep our country safe but more importantly to hold to account and bring justice for the victims of terrorism we should teach children the important difference because if the children believe that you know all muslims are like solomon their baby the guy who blew up manchester where on earth do we get as a country it's not acceptable to leave that implication in children's minds. and

that's how things are looking don't forget plenty of stories to our website as usual you can find that at r.t. . and we're going to fulfill that promise. just apologise to the people and come on you know we've all pots the truth we leave you really really. really really prefer that you want to 1st correct that. you know.

for being. a coming coming coming. back guys are financial survival guide liquid and said i don't know that you can convert music as quite easily. to keep in mind the last of me to a place in the last guy's record. welcome to the alex salmond show as we examine the fallout from the u.k.'s christmas election to do to turn to our prestigious panel of political pundits to

assess the consequences all 3 johnson trial has brought us back the vote but lost the united kingdom can labor survive the election post-mortem what ever happened to the likely liberal democrats in the blue corner we have peter oborne the man who has a great deal more about the tory. i think that most tories in the election peter became that way just a political animals it's additional tortie who voted for me corp and as for version of mr corbin i thought it was the economic cliff sensible thing to do i thought it was much more likely to be economic security with mr corbin's plan of a. of a final say referendum after the choice between a soft brick sit and staying in mr johnson's plan of basically wes risking everything on a hard break in the yellow corner we feature length it will pick one time liberal democrat presidential candidate but now a rebel born again brick city or led by emerged as

a clear winner among our forecasters by not only predicting the election result which many people dead but the defeat of just winston which virtually nobody else did but want to watch is just winston's own seat she needs to remember what happened to nick clegg in sheffield how and when he was leader and he lost and in the event corner a newcomer to arpaio in chris williamson rebel former labor m.p. who stood against his own party as an independent and suffered the same fate as most other independents in this election however chris has some crude advice for his old colleagues on how to avoid eminent self-destruction i think is a say whether comes forward as a leader needs to go as i've already said accept a progressive people's breaks it might not argument repudiate this hold on since of the of the which and and infuse the members bring the party together before the new m.p.'s have managed to get their feet under their desk.