u.s. presidential candidate billionaire michael bloomberg admits his team use prison labor to make campaign calls. ballet dancers in paris joined the demonstrations against pension reforms which could see their retirement age rise from 42 to 64. and while parts of sub-saharan africa suffer from a chronic shortage of prescription painkillers we'll look at how an ambitious project in rwanda is turning the situation around. for broadcasting live coverage from our studios most of this is our international i'm sean thomas certainly glad to have you with us all right u.s. democratic presidential candidate michael bloomberg has admitted his campaign made

use of prison labor although the billionaire says he wasn't aware it was happening his team hired a firm to help with his 2020 election campaign which in turn employed female inmates to make campaign calls. about this when the reporter called us let's assume as we discovered we. had done this we immediately ended our relationship with the company and the people who hired them imagine being so reach you have people who have people who have prisoners to do stuff for you. being so rich you don't even bother to check what you are spending millions of dollars on. rita rating we sat in did when we learn a vendor of a vendor of a vendor use prison labor we did know about it and we never would have allowed it we don't believe in this practice and we immediately stop working with pro com and the people who hired them so so how do you do it pay someone to pay someone to tell

them mike bloomberg is a big spender he was last to do in the presidential race and he has already outspent all the other democrat candidates on campaign advertising i mean the guy has so much money he doesn't seem to have the time to check what he spent a good dog but there's credit michael bloomberg did promise america more work just to. get it. for president jobs creator. right america more jobs even if you don't particularly want them what makes it much much worse is that many of the prisons in the states a private run for profit and there are laws that force people to work so if you are in a jail and you are told to work you have to well you'll be punished sometimes they pay you as much as $20.00 a month that's right $20.00

a month now here's the irony mike bloomberg billionaire one of the richest people in america was essentially paying for what is a slave labor to cool people apparently tell them that he's a good guy wait the bloomberg is he was paying someone to pay someone to tell everyone what a good guy he is trump says he wants to run the nation like he's running is business god help us. everybody says stuff that comes back to bite them but when billionaires do it it's generally an order of magnitude. it gets. worse the further you dig when he launched his campaign his media bloomberg news sent out a letter thousands of its journalists pledging to uphold its principle of not investigating its own or this is the sort of person mike is mike bloomberg started as a middle class kid to work his way through college and built a business from

a single room to a global entity creating tens of thousands of good paying jobs along the way. there he could've he probably should've but he didn't let me continue he became richer year after year he made really a selling bank is ludicrous the price tried to gadgets this seemed bankers who through unbridled greed set off the 2008 financial crash prodding tens of millions of people of whom as of life savings and job. michael bloomberg the president. investigative journalist to dave lindorff for believes that the prison labor scandal is hugely damaging for bloomberg campaign. i really shouldn't be acceptable for anybody liberal or conservative to use prison labor it's forced labor bloomberg is a multibillionaire he's worth like $54000000000.00 he's made his money by you know

not paying attention to things like that. that he's not concerned about the little guy and which i guess becomes you know if you're if you're supposedly a democrat you're concerned about the little guy and it's enormous a packer see it a big problem because i think it's going to hurt him a lot i don't know where people get the idea that bloomberg is the great savior for democrats in the race in the race to get struck he has almost no poll support all the money. billionaires have not traditionally done that well running for office it's it's you know you got to have money to run for president but when you have that much money i think that most people are pretty suspicious of your motives in running for office. sub-saharan africa has long been suffering from an acute shortage of painkillers but a facility in rwanda is now making cheap drugs available to the region.

i did. and she was not even able to take. the puzzle.

human rights for people in. the country in the. human rights. crisis that has featured far fewer headlines. international attention. of the painkiller tramadol particular. control is a substance of growing concern particularly in north central and west africa regions of africa now account for 87 percent of pharmacies cry poor sees. the

recent rises jew almost entirely to trafficking. the international narcotics control board says that 92 percent of all morphine used is consumed by just 17 percent of the world's population living in western countries meanwhile low income nations in africa and asia can only meet a tiny fraction of their medical opioid needs political analyst alice bruno says it's all about the money. perma suitable companies out of business is big businesses with many salaries to pay they need and a lot of them are listed in the stock market in other words they have shareholders they have to take care of so because these western companies focused on the expensive medicines they've reduced the bill of build the and demand for the

natural keep one that's why the subject of morphine again is such a not just controversial it's unusual it's something that people don't talk about very much it's sad to say it cynical but life stick a 2nd seat to profits and earnings and the the entire capitalist system contributes to that it's always a matter of especially since in the last 25 years. stock market performance has taken precedence over everything else. a nationwide strike in france over pension reforms is now heading into its 4th week and a dance troupe in paris is stepping out of the theatre and onto the streets to make their feelings hurt.

to the full last of us all to what the girls have shown you with swan lake is 15 years of sacrifice and it's daily work every day every morning and there is a limit to how long it's possible to remain at that level of life if you want to continue to see pretty dancers on stage they can't go on until they're 64 it's not possible and perhaps the most beautiful protest that paris seen at this step but they don't see is what actually striking behind them they had fattest brad cult shot in a jail and now the latest a sequel. by the french government to this strike it's now time to escape the hit show support for some i know i don't think the british despite our pension systems think doesn't sustainable this is the only way he was basically yeah he's coming out stiff now forms that it will run towards until it reaches the next

if nothing gets done while the focus may be off france right now time of crisis is a problem some like to slow to find is the baby boom but chip bracing for continues to be tight pension systems across the world are straining at the white house as a result of the country's see the being slowly racing to the toilet or warming up soaring the tension that exists and the problem is that the demographics have changed in 1986 when the system was invented you had people painful no one pension and today you've got 1.7 people playing for one's attention this. of course that is completely unsustainable so it needs to be recalled and i basically i think you've got all these demonstrations of people saying yes but not yet you know not now i don't want to be the 1st one to to have a worse situation so it's clear that the world might not get this there will

be more money to retire on well not so fast according to process impending pension advice it is to see a lot the situation is that perhaps is doing is the clintons government this means jesting i don't find that show that the overall cost of the front page system has in fact stabilized even reduced and that huge deficit governments this warning about could just be a blip shrinking down to 5000000000 you rates by 2030 so this is a ms reprint a tip for the book called the government one of its 1st measures rule was to suppress a tax on words and reckless it's called by the french the president of the rich but if you tax bill you know so you must not forget to add an exchange controls in order to cover for toxic evasion because there is a lot of leniency with suspects evasion in this country but

a very very few people trudge people who want this new feudal american style dystopia that is the very program of president franklin but don't want them absolutely new days of strike action have already been announced that france has this standoff between unions and the gov it is in ewing in the meantime artists and performers are determined to see the beat to scare away. the brig's a process has dragged on for more than 3 and a half years now so some british shoppers have decided to take matters into their own hands and split from brussels themselves.

most emotions to see if these taste any better drug brussel sprouts all for. this promise have the right to their own identity the up from young man. himself identifying as he'll just sprouts in solidarity even went from one to ship it $1.00 to $2.00 in the spring. you're sure of sprouts taste really nice and they're cute in the salty tears remaining. many of our customers are interesting knowing where the food comes from

lincolnshire sprouts like old lincolnshire sprouts because they're from lincolnshire i knew all about so called your ground because they're from your shit many of our customers like to know that. australia is environmental policies are under scrutiny amid devastating wildfires that story much more still to come on our 2 international. you know world of big partisan movie lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be. smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for

the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. politicians to do something. they put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president or injury. or something want to. get it right to be close this is what the 43 in the morning can't be good that i'm interested always in the waters of. the city. and i welcome back as is our to international and u.s. intelligence officials are reportedly looking at new ways to prevent foreign

interference in next year's presidential election this according to the washington post a valid could involve a cyber warfare campaign against certain russian political figures or to use money from the ocean as more. indeed washington post newspaper published an article citing fairies american officials former and current who spoke with a paper on the condition of anonymity because of the issues sensitivity and the peace claims that u.s. cyber command is considering attacks to target senior russian leadership and the country's elite though not president wide were putting in order to counter russian interference a new us is 2020 presidential elections the idea would be the paper goes on that the personal sense to date or all of the targeted russian oligarchs and officials would be heat eve that interference did not stop we asked russia's foreign ministry spokesperson what is the heart of our to comment on that at the if

your daughter store the producer in your it's the same thing that has been actually use for many years bell west and partner interference no internal affairs and regime change the u.s. is now trying justify its actions we can only sang them for this acknowledgment of their illegal practices which they normally accuse everyone of themselves which russia's foreign ministry spokesperson what is the hardest crimes that there is no single approve of any russian interference in any us election so far given while the counter measures are already being considered moscow is denying any meddling origin requested a comment from the u.s. defense department and cyber command we are waiting for their response refreshing r.t. from moscow. with less than a week left of 2019 love start taking a log of the outgoing year with polly boyko and artie's online series in case you missed. as i see why mine is guide to the year that was january got brazil

off on the right wing tracked when this guy nationalist. naro was sworn in as president of south america's largest nation a hostile takeover was launched at the start of 2019 in venezuela when this guy one guy go challenge the far right see. surprise surprise why don't have the backing of the u.s. and its allies the planned benevolent regime change didn't work out in cities across france the yellow vest movement continue to bash things up every weekend demanding that the french president to. build them an economically rosy future instead march toward a brutal acts of terror take place in new zealand when a psycho right wing not break into a mosque and find. life streamed the manager of tens of innocent civilians on face

moving into april wiki leaks said it said julian assange toft out of london's ecuadorian embassy and the west by british police in was going to be. fiction the world was shocked when paris is not true don cathedral the home of the hunchback from that disney film fell victim to a fire that store its roof. collapsed and this moment was probably peak 2019 a comedian with no political experience and literally had played the role of an ordinary man who accidentally becomes president was elected president of ukraine 2019 brought us an escalating us china trade war donald trump employees. of chinese that sports and washington especially blacklisted one away the chinese target giant slash major threat to aapl the gulf was getting tense to.

inmate's iran announced that it would stop complying with the 2015. deal i would start enriching uranium again while in the rendering ready one a 2nd time as prime minister by a landslide in india's general election in june the orange one touched down by the phone 7 royal treatment just 3 days later after 3 years of failing to deliver bragg's its u.k. prime minister to resign may officially threw in the towel and all traces of civility to announce easy process the poisoned chalice of bread that. citizens of hong kong started hitting the streets in west a dented numbers angered by a chinese extradition law and. then the summer news law was interrupted by news of the death of a famous banana and establishment jeffrey at the guy with secrets about everyone

had been awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges but he was mysteriously found data in his jail cell in new york triggering conspiracy theories. to the end of summer $2900.00. 90. in the. opposition figure has been called up for military service to a remote base. claims the activist exemption and was therefore essentially kidnapped a claim is examined over. forest fires in southeast australia have been raging for almost 2 months now with firefighters freezing to extreme conditions against them a record heat wave with temperatures are predicted to stay in the high thirty's for

. these celsius over the weekend and into early next week 5000000 hectares of land have been burned nationwide in australia over the past few months 9 people have lost their lives and more than 150 homes have been destroyed smoke from the fires has blanketed the country's largest city sydney air pollution there has crossed at the critical mark at certain times 11 times higher than the quote unquote life threatening threshold. on saturday environmental activists rallied in sydney to condemn their prime minister's decision to go on holiday to hawaii while his country burned many of those gathered were also calling for stronger action to fight climate change responding to the crisis and criticism scott morrison had this to say in defense of his government's climate policy a strategy is taking action on climate change what we want to do is engage in requests and job destroying an economy crunching targets which is being seeking to

be postured to us at the moment. graeme sawyer from the australian association for environmental education believes the government is putting industry 1st we've always had cause but we've never had flaws look and. pot of the issue is really bad environmental policy over a long period of time which has allowed the country to get out of at a shipe i think the big race and why they defending the call industry is because the coal industry. many many years as border very close to government spent a lot of money supporting 'd governments got a little lobbyist and stuff working with governments on these issues the real issue i think is that they get a significant amount of revenue from the call industry jobs in the call industry not that significant when you look at the industries across the whole economy it seems to be an excuse to me i mean they're not showing any great signs of caring about the environment i think there's a lot of people in this country who when given to the white house the flaws and the

really big issues going to be how bad it is but in a much. more news. international. max and stacey are continuing on our south american tour and as you can see behind me we are in rio de janeiro oh my god so beautiful so much going on this is a country in transition. today there are good and bad the bad news in yemen to the united states. the good. war in syria the cia and the u.s. military were engaged in covert actions really throughout the world. where they

were assassinating populist leaders they were backing up the right way military funding an army was there's no. more because there's always a small. code that's. a profit. same hammer i can use to smash someone's head is the same hammer i can use to build them a home but that's a human choosing what to do with me expressing my values for the tool and that's what we need to do with artificial intelligence as well. the washington consensus led by the united states says the liberal world order must be defended at almost all costs said differently the foreign policy blog demands the post cold war you know polar moment be preserved but alas it would seem a multiple world has already arrived.

my name is 2nd on. this scene. of the order you know if you. will let me know if we've got a good. movie. so you know. these kids and i use down 6 to make it very very easy and those who teach school on drug use to people. who would fall through clothes because the clubs you're in he's trying to fit life in music that. i love to dance because he makes me happy i love he does because he makes me happy playing fulton. and when you go to

church we have nothing. to do beyond. the call if it's backed off my ass it was a lot of the current because. you know. i don't. know if you're a. lead . on all of. this or another line of the live.

i guess it's become a great tradition just before new year's eve to talk to someone who is in charge of where the russian economy is go and we're here and the russian minister. economic development once again the christmas trees right here to talk with mr mchugh might have been good morning at any rate to do that one more time let's begin with the news from the last few days and focus on the nord stream to pipeline project in the baltic sea for months the message from russian officials has been that pretty much nothing can stop a project that is almost all but complete many experts were saying that these sanctions are only aimed at the domestic audience it's just a trick before the elections to show that pressure is being put on russia but now

the measures are in place and russia finds itself in a position a very tricky one that technically it doesn't have the capabilities to finish the pipeline project so what does that say about how much moscow is able to come up with a plan b. plan c. etc well there was there was already extensive comments there that coming from president bush him is to cause a mutual friend in jail and what i would like to attract your attention to is the problem of the. sanctions coming from the united states and its you know it big program for the water as a whole it's being named as a problem not only from own slaves but the review from the review and so it just recently for example we can't go into commission was from those who were discussing was brutally murdered the amused when the me and for.