discomfort. subscribing to the documentary. the us has struggled for years with an epidemic of opioid drug addiction now landmark trials underway that could hold drug maker johnson and johnson partly responsible we'll give you the details. also on the show mergers and restructurings aren't so easy when you're talking about french jobs just ask jean which is looking to make cuts. and china's government has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty so how does it get the rest we'll look at one story. welcome to your business i'm

stephen beard's in bilin good to have you with us consumer products giant johnson and johnson has begun defending itself in a landmark u.s. trial that seeks to assign blame for the country's prescription painkiller epidemic the state of oklahoma accuses the firm of deceptively marketing opioid painkillers and understating their addictive potential to other pharmaceutical companies produce pharma and israel's teva have already settled with oklahoma the trial is the 1st against a drug manufacturer in connection with the crisis and it's being watched by dozens of other states which have filed similar suits. there's now for more on this i'm joined now by washington correspondent oversell it all or it could have you on the show 1st off one of the accusations against johnson and johnson and what does the company say. well the major accusation is that johnson and johnson has been for years now 3 producing and marketing highly addictive opioid substances and

basically under playing the risks off addiction here and one of the most prominent drugs they produce are patches with the substance of fenton ill and fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin so essentially here the accusation is that their marketing practice 6 and marketing practices of other drug makers in the united states can be held accountable for the ongoing crisis in the united states and of course drug makers are fighting back they say that it's not the fault of the producers because the industry is already heavily regulated in the united states but it's rather the fault of those distributing these trucks like physicians for instance that they hand out opioid painkillers to easily for instance and so essentially making the case that this is all about drug abuse bellaver this trial is close to being followed in the u.s.

can you give us an idea of how big and how much scale this crisis this addiction crisis has there. well you can easily see and feel that when you travel the united states whether you go up to rural areas like in new england or also west virginia which is one of the areas that are very heavily hit by the ongoing opioid crisis but you can also see people under the influence of opioids in certain areas of bigger cities like even washington d.c. now the attorney general in oklahoma today called this the worst manmade public health crisis in the history of the united states and for that reason in light of that this is a very important and interesting lawsuit that began today also because some other 2000 lawsuits are set to follow that were filed by states by counties also by native american tribes that are very heavily affected and it will be a test also whether the drug makers can be held accountable for the opium crisis in

the united states or not all over these are often prescription drugs we're talking about why has it been so hard to regulate the briefly if you can well 1st of all these drugs have become stronger in recent years and also more addictive and that led to a situation where you would be able to change them from your local drug dealer on the streets and sort of like they're out of control of physicians that is one reason the other reason is that the threshold that the hurdle to obtain these substances is not very high is so if you were to make the case that you are suffering from chronic pain your doctor might prescribe you an opioid painkiller very easily other addicts see their doctors even willing to hurt themselves to obtain them there are reports about people even shooting themselves in their legs just to get a fence on the overselling joining us from washington following a trial that will be keeping tabs on his well thank you. general electric is

considering plans to cut more than a 1000 jobs and friends of us despite the french government repeatedly urging the u.s. engineering firm not to do so proposals would see most of the cuts made it g.'s power equipment business for in the east of the country earlier this year g.e. was fined by the government france for failing to meet a promise to create a 1000 jobs after the choir the french firm al stone's power business and 2015. let's go over to new york now and talk to our financial correspondent jose luis de haro who's a g.e. has been struggling lately in europe what's going on there well general electric is still struggling and we have to be she knew we lost nearly 1000000000 dollars last year were we make. systems for gas and coal fired power plants for actually 71 percent launch in the 1st quarter profit do you

orders a business area has seen me to margene levels dropped and for said to turn around the business are taking way longer than many had expected potentially lucrative chinese market it's not giving g.e. the opportunities for growth that the company has expected to see something that could explain the d.s. is china's a rising determination to replace imports from g.e. gaza power turbans we don't mess with production also let's not forget about all the factors such as a slowdown in global economy competition from major players like siemens and the threat of the rising tires and all the. eighty's also worth noting that general electric eliminated 30000 jobs last year was the heart of the force in new york thank you. and speaking of french jobs renault and chrysler are considering joining forces to create one of the largest car companies in the world

and the french government wants a guarantee that no jobs will be cut in any merger. fear is stalking the assembly lines of fear at chrysler and. for the workers turn out because the bosses are negotiating a possible merger the idea is to create a new auto giant but it's not just french workers the french state also wants jobs to be protected. and sold renault chairman john dominique said now a very clearly that it was the 1st of the guarantees i wanted from him in the opening of these negotiations with. a guarantee for french industrial jobs on sites and another guarantee required by the minister any deal must strengthen the alliance between the no one japan's nikkei. so there i want this deal within the framework of the unknown isaan alliance which goes back 20 years we want to strengthen it it's resulted in important technological investments don't the government owns 15 percent of the no which explains why it's so vocal about the

mega deal power is once the new group to be a global leader in developing batteries for electric. chrysler in the known hope to achieve cost savings a fine 1000000000 euros annually with the merger the theory being that if they are successful they'll have much more to invest in electro mobility. over the asian our china appears to be signaling that it could restrict exports of rare earth metals to the u.s. that would open a new front in the trade dispute between the 2 countries report by the state controlled global times newspaper said beijing was already making such plans a state official told reuters on the same day the domestic consumption would be the future priority although china is willing to meet what it called reasonable demands from other countries and china accounts for 80 percent of rare earth metals which are critical for tech products and military weapons. and let's stay with china the country's economic transformation has been one of the biggest stories of the past

decades since 1979 market reform and foreign investment have helped 700000000 people work their way out of poverty china's become the world's 2nd largest economy and the communist party says that because of reform only around $30000000.00 people now live below beijing's poverty line which is about a dollar a day the government says it can bring that number to 0 by 2020 as the next year and meanwhile china's wealth gap is growing the richest 100 people now have more wealth than the poorest 2 fifths of the population combined the difference is income between urban and rural areas is a key driver of income inequality and the state's efforts to combat poverty are not always welcome. some young. she is the latest and perhaps the last of generations of name atic fisherman who worked at the y. and yellow rivers in canal province peace watch from the water as the skyline of nearby junk joe has expanded and expanded with the prosperity that's enabled the

provincial capital to grow has not made it as far as son and his family. lineage all that are you could tell you if i was high rise buildings have nothing to do with me. or for others enough i'm a. just use of food to look at their high that's it. they have nothing to do with me. or your way all. the conditions in which son and his family live a start a lot on his little boy spends much of his time playing in the rubble of their last home. the new temporary place is better but with son and his wife sometimes making just $75.00 a month between them the family falls below beijing's threshold for extreme poverty of a dollar a day per person son hopes for better for his children. for the other because of me this is all they can do. but if i switched jobs and were able to encourage my

kids they might become a big boss so something. could happen it's not a 100 percent certain but it is possible. fishing of the rivers is now illegal not just for environmental reasons china wants to eradicate extreme poverty by 2025 driving then a magic fisherman off the water they go men types to push them into the city into houses and into better paid work. and that's it for me in the business team. thanks for watching.

some time in the 26. my great granddaughter. and around half of. your world will be around 2 degrees warmer. evidently sea level rise fire at least one. referring to have some climate impacts return greater than what we see your pretty

. it's really frightening more. or less. why aren't people more concerned. a little yellow. shorts may 31st d.w. . enter the conflict zone with tim sebastian. i'll be challenging those in power asking tough questions demanding. as conflicts intensify i'll be meeting with kid players on the ground in the stands as a. crushing through the rhetoric holding the powerful to account for the conflict zone. conflict zone with jim sebastian on t.w. . i'm not laughing at them because sometimes i am but i stand up and went in that. thinks deep into the german culture

of knocking them stereotypes of class but if you think the future of the country that i'm not playing. yet need to rethink this grandmother they are to me it's all about the ok. i'm rachel joins me from the gentleman from d.w. post. can artists spear replaced by artificial intelligence are machines capable of creativity on this edition of arts and culture will be asking can i am i make good art or art at all will have experts a d.w.i. global media forum weighing in. also on the show the uncensored and very human photos of boris mikhail the 80 year old artist who documents life on the streets.

first though it's goodbye rembrandt hello robots well not exactly but more and more artists are getting artificial intelligence to do their work for them or at least testing what ai ai is capable of so when will the machines just take over and when they can eventually produce music or movies all by themselves will it really be art here's a quick look at some of ai's artistic accomplishments so far. contact myself a blood robot recently seen i think that is the end of me and controlled by intelligent self play not an isolated case robots and ai have long figured on the art scene sufficiently and artistic intelligence seems to work well to get it something something. the french connective l.b.s. uses ai to create his paintings.