Business Matters

Officials in Brussels are proposing rules that would force online video services in the European Union to ensure at least twenty percent of their content is made in the EU. The biggest companies in the sector, Netflix and Amazon Prime, are American and much of their material currently comes from Hollywood. Supporters of the plan say it would have "a positive effect on cultural diversity". EU rules already oblige television broadcasters to spend at least half of their time showing European works, including material made in their own country. The world's biggest publicly traded oil company, Exxon Mobil, has largely seen down a rebellion at its annual general meeting over its climate change policies. Only a third of shareholders backed a motion that would have forced the company to work out a strategy against global warming. However a majority did approve a motion that could allow green activists to nominate members of the company's board. A report by the charity Human Rights Watch says thousands of children, some as young as eight years old, are working on tobacco farms in Indonesia. The country is the fifth biggest tobacco producer in the world. The authors say the farms involved supply companies including Philip Morris - the maker of Marlboro - and British American Tobacco, which owns cigarette brands including Dunhill. Our reporter has been to hear the stories of some of the child labourers. We speak to a group called Eco Peace Middle East, which has united Israelis and Palestinians on some of the biggest issues in the middle east, including water provision. And a report on our technology correspondent, Rory Cellan Jones on a new breed of robots - designed to work alongside their human masters. Our guests for the hour, on opposite sides of the Pacific - Peter Morici, Profesor of International Business at the University of Maryland - who's in Washington, and Puja Mehra of the Hindu in Delhi. (Picture: French actress Nadia Fares at the premiere of the French TV show 'Marseille', a Netflix co-production. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)