u.s. presidential candidate billionaire michael bloomberg admits his team used prison labor to make campaign calls. ballet dancers in paris joined the demonstrations against pension reforms which could see an age or 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. broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is r.t.

international glad to have you with us we're going to start with some breaking news this hour a passenger plane has just crashed in kazakhstan with 100 people on board the aircraft belongs to baek air and was flying from the country's largest city almighty to the capital ton officials are now saying that 7 people are dead and the rest actually have survived we are keeping track of the story in the newsroom and we will be bringing you updates as soon as they come into the newsroom of course. right switching gears now u.s. democratic presidential candidate michael bloomberg has admitted his campaign made use of prison labor although the billionaire says he was unaware it was happening his team hired a firm to help with his 2020 alexion campaign which in turn employed female inmates to make campaign calls. we learned about this when the reporter called us but as soon as we discovered which friend a subcontractor had done this we immediately ended our relationship with the

company and the people who hire them imagine being so rich you have people who have people who have prisoners to do stuff for you agence being so rich you don't even bother to check what you are spending millions of dollars on. rita reading we sad indeed 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 stopped working with pro com and the people who hired them 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 they his credit michael bloomberg did promise america work

just to. get it. for president jobs create. problems. 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 1000000000 there one of the richest people in america was essentially paying for what is a slave labor to cool people apparently tell them that easy good god 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 to thousands of its journalists pledging to uphold its principle of not investigating its own 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 to stop 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 ludicrously priced products all gadgets the same bankers who

through unbridled greed set off the 2008 financial crash the provident tens of millions of people of whom as of life savings and jobs. michael bloomberg the president investigative journalist dave lindorff or believes that the prison labor scandal is hugely damaging for bloomberg campaign. it 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. enormous a packer see it a big problem 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 give strength he has almost no poll support all the money. billionaires have not traditionally done that well running for office 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. subsaharan africa has long been suffering from an acute shortage of painkillers but. facility in rwanda is now making cheap drugs available to the region. i do go with.

the big boys in the end she was not even able to take the medication because a. we've both been in management. human rights if people are dying in pain in the country and that is not the human rights.

crisis that has featured far fewer headlines. international attention as the non-medical use of the painkiller tramadol particular number of. control is a substance of growing concern particularly in north central and west africa closer regions of africa now account for 87 percent of pharmacies cripe dorsey's worldwide and not the recent rises jew almost entirely. it's a trafficking. coming to me should it hoeing. 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 alessandro bruno says it's all about money karma suitable companies are businesses 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 ability and demand for the natural he wants 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 lives tick a 2nd seat to profits and earnings and the the entire capitalist system

contributes to that it's always a matter especially since in the last 25 years. stock market performance has taken precedence over everything else. so let's go back to our breaking news story this hour at least 7 people have been killed in a plane crash in kazakhstan according to government officials the aircraft hit a 2 story building during takeoff with 100 people on board now the plane belongs to back air and was flying from the country's largest city on the tee to the capital nor soltani now we are keeping track of the story and we'll be bringing you updates as they come in of course. in nation wide strike in france over pension reforms is now heading into its 4th weekend a dance troupe in paris is stepping out of the theater and onto the streets to make their feelings heard take a look. 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 with you 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 brads culture in danger and now the latest to sink. and to bite the french government 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 it's the only way he was actually facing he's come out of the stick forms and it's been told if you read the next. nothing he's done while the focus may be on fronts right now time of crisis is a problem some like to slow to a point but it's the baby blue chip reaching for continues to type pension systems across the world just raining on the white house as a result of the country's see the been slowly racing to the toilet or warming up soaring debt 6 the problem is that the demographics have changed in 1946 when the system was invented you had people painful no one pension and today you've got 1.7 people going from one 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 right now. as you know there will be more money to retire on well not so fast according to process independent picture advice which is to see all the situation is that perhaps as he is the clinton's government this means just staying own findings showed that the overall cost of the front suspension system has in fact stabilized even reduced and that huge deficit government to this warning about could just be a blip shrinking down to $5000000000.00 you rates by 2030 so this is a ms reprint a tip for the public government one of its 1st measures rule was to suppress a tax on words and reckless is 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 care for the 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 fuel for american style dystopia that is the very program of president franklin but don't want them to observe it the new days of strike action have already been announced that france has this standoff with the unions that the gov that is in ewing in the meantime parties and are determined to see the bait 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.

to morrisons to see if these taste any better tried brussels sprouts. this problems have the right to their own identity they are from young man. himself identifying as a yorkshire sprouts in solidarity even the one from lancashire bit one with you in a sprout. you're sure it's a proud steeds to really nice and they're cute in the salty tears remainer. many

of our customers are interesting knowing where their food comes from lincolnshire sprouts lincolnshire sprouts because they're from lincolnshire. brown because they're from yorkshire many of our customers like to know that. u.s. intelligence officials are reportedly looking at new ways to prevent foreign interference in next year's presidential election according to the washington post that could involve a cyber warfare campaign against certain russian political figures artie's me for national has more. indeed washington post newspaper published an article citing various american officials former and current who spoke with a paper on the condition of anonymity because of the issues sensitivity and the

piece 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 ss 2020 presidential election was the ideal 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 you daughter store the parties in your it's the same thing that has been actively used for many years about western partners interference in our internal affairs and regime change the us is now trying justify its actions we can only sang them for this acknowledgment of their illegal practices of which they normally accuse everyone of themselves which russia's foreign ministry spokesperson what is the

hottest prize that there is no single proof 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 so than a week left of $2911.00 start taking a look at the outgoing year with polly boyko and artie's online series in case you missed it. as i see why my god to the year that was january got brazil off on the right wing tract 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 all of the elected mr. surprise surprise

quite or had the backing of the u.s. and its allies planned benevolent regime change didn't work out in cities across france the yellow vest movement continue to bash things out every weekend demanding that the french president emmanuel build them an economically rosy future instead march saw a brutal acts of terror and take place in new zealand when a psycho right wing not broke into a mosque in. lifestream the manager of tens of innocent civilians on face moving into april wiki leaks julian assange toft out of london's ecuadorian embassy and arrested by british police in was going to be. 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 by

a collapse 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 threats to aapl the gulf was getting tense too for a chain. inmate's iran announced that it would stop complying with the 2015. deal. while in the run for modi won a 2nd term as prime minister by a landslide in india's general election in june the orange one touched down but the phone royal treatment just 3 days later after 3 years of failing to deliver bragg's

it u.k. prime minister to resign may officially threw in the towel and all traces. she now sees the process the poisoned chalice of gregg's and. citizens of hong kong to mistreat. 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. brings us to the end of summer 2000. through the rest of the year soon for more episodes of in case you missed it you can head to our. farm employee

a prominent opposition figure has been called up for military service and sent to a remote base. with the activists to have an exemption and was therefore. claim is examined over on our website. or deadly forest fires in southeast australia have been raging for almost 2 months now with firefighters facing extreme conditions against them a record heat wave with temperatures predicted to stay in the high thirty's to forty's. 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 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 policies. a strategy is taking action on climate change what we want to is engage in requests and job destroying an economy crunching targets which is seeking to be postured to us at the moment graeme sawyer from the australian association for environmental education believes that the government is putting industry 1st we've always had flaws but we've never had flaws and. part of the issue is really bad environmental policy over a long period of time which is allowed the country to get out of that a shipe i think the big reason why they're defending the call industry is because

the coal industry. many many years is bored so very close to government and a lot of money supporting governments got a little lobbyist and stuff working with governments only as issues the real issue i think is that they get a significant amount of revenue from the coal industry the 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 so i think there's a lot of people in this country who are being given a big white couple by the fires and the really big issue is going to be how bad it is but in a much. tired of the real world harm caused by almost 7 months of violent protests in hong kong the action has now moved online instead of clashing on the real streets of the city rival sides have found another place to settle scores where only digital destruction can play out.

having the guts to throw the truth to the police in reality but if. you don't have the guts to kill those. returning. to the fire burn brighter and again are we ready.

to go back to our breaking news story this hour at least 7 people have been killed in a plane crash in kazakhstan according to government officials the aircraft clipped a wall just after takeoff and went down in a residential area there were 95 passengers and 5 crew members on board back air flight 2100 these are unverified pictures from social media reportedly showing the wreckage the plane was flying from the country's largest city almost 2 to the capital north we are keeping track of the story and just a reminder this information will change as we get ahead of the story as it is a breaking and developing situation. the latest on our breaking news and other stories you can head to our team dot com so if you can cause next stay with us. how's donald trump's impeachment drama playing overseas 'd we'll have

a provocative one on one with russian studies expert stephen cohen on this edition . of the politics. from student teacher and drama has dominated politics in the united states how is it being received around the world especially in russia stephen cohen is a russia scholar who advised president george h.w. bush on the former soviet union and is taught russian studies at princeton and n.y.u. some critics have called him putin's number one american apologist he contends he's a patriot of american national security and his latest book is war with russia from putin and ukraine to trump and russia gate he joins me from new york thankful 1st

soko on all right thank you very hows all this politicking thing this debate this. was was going on the united states how's it playing in russia. well they may be right they may be wrong it's something to discuss but what we are calling russia gate and i guess now ukraine gate that is these charges against trump that he has some nefarious ties to the kremlin in russia itself in the and i'm speaking now the people me larry the people in russia who study the united states there my counterparts russia they study the united states they interpret these charges against trump as being lost because trump ran and he was elected on a program of quo. vote cooperating with russia in fact i recall vividly

you and i doing an interview together and we were both struck by trump's promise that he would cooperate with russia at that time i guess it was $216.00 the cold war was heating up and that was unusual and i took the position with you know i was not a trump person that that was a good thing but in russia today and i follow this daily on the on the television and in the newspapers there is this belief among the people who care about american russian relations that all this grief and all these charges against trump originated because he wanted to cooperate with russia in other words that these it originated with the enemies of what our generation mary used to call detente there is substantial truth in that i don't think it's the whole truth but that's the way it's viewed in russia there's one other thing i'll mention to you and then i'll stop among young people i mean people that say 18 to 35 from my point of view that's young. and there's

a disillusionment because these people many of whom were very pro-american they wanted russia to become more like america but now they read every day about allegations that our intelligence agencies have been off the reservation have been manipulating american politics have been doing bad things well they grew up in a system where that's what the russian intelligence agencies do so they had thought unlike in russia intelligence agencies don't do that in america now they're being told not by russia but by american news reports which are broadcast in russia that that's happening here so the reaction in russia is i would say very profound. steven cohen feel about the debate that was held in congress when john murtha the republican told his colleagues that somewhere in rest you're right now president putin is laughing at us.