you know want to remind you of our main story right now. russian opposition leader looks into volleys beda to get his name on the presidential ballot has been rejected russia's election commission says he's in eligible to run against president putin in next year's vote due to a past criminal conviction. thank you so much for spending this part of the day with us on lateline iraq on behalf of all of us here in berlin we have to see you going to the top of the hour. when i'm travelling to be comfortable. but i also want to stay up to

date on the latest news events. and d.-w. makes that part of travelling easy because it's available and thousands of hometowns resorts and cruise ships world why. have you found the domain signing send us a picture that shows d w in your room you can read a great price d.w. dot com travel quiz. look. at. christmas is over for another year and retailers up shaking their stocking owners of small shops are disappointed abbas christmas sales but the online competition is in a merry spirit especially when it comes to electronic gadgets. and following the

new silk road why china is. sinking two point five billion dollars into a little known town in georgia and how local companies are trying to cash in on the new trade route on their doorstep. all this and more on the business and how the office in berlin today father christmas can put his feet up meanwhile retailers will be taking stock of the run up to today's festivities here in germany small shop owners are not in a merry mood sales were below expectations but the big retail chains and department stores did well selling plenty of toys clothes gadgets and cosmetics and also more people than ever before went on line to buy items for their family and friends the german retail association says online sales increased by ten percent this holiday season to twelve billion euros. and many of those big money spinning products are from the world of take bows the serious and the silly. look at the

little drummer boy playing without a drum set he's playing on free drum using sensors to track a drum his movements high tech is fun throwing a roller coaster at copenhagen's to fully you can ride a dragon through a fantasy world or enjoy the thrills of a hyper realistic london skyline adventure when in fact you're laying in an advanced swivel chair. virtual reality made a big splash in twenty seventeen but not only for thrill seekers v.r. is a learning tool to this shirt lets you look inside the body a lesson in biology ready to wear. wearables were all over the place dressing humans in east and dogs with a collar that connects to g.p.s. and other devices. and if wearing your tech isn't personal enough for you how about implants chipping people sounds like an orwellian whoreson ario but it's

quite practical. once chipped employees at a swedish company can open doors with the swipe of a hand employees are thrilled and want to pay for it on the future and. a future where even information about your train ticket is stored under your skin a future where you pay using your fingertips privacy issues not for these early adopters. my facebook account probably knows more about me than this company will ever know about me as are so i'm not really bothered by that humans and technology taking another step towards each other in twenty seventeen you do the walking the avatar follows at least for now. one thousand years ago caravans of camels brought porcelain spices and precious silk all the way from china to europe and the silk is what gave that old trade route its name the silk

road today the chinese government is investing hundreds of billions of u.s. dollars to revive this route by building ports and bridges and roads both in china and abroad this week we want to take you on a journey along this new silk road and take a closer look at the most important stations and today we stop in to place in the capital of georgia it is the only country in the southern caucasus with access to the black sea cutting shipping time to europe significantly and this is why the port city of a not clear gets a brand new deep sea harbor in the next ten years the chinese government will sink two point five billion dollars into that project and georgia does not only want to be a transit country with so much trade going past its doorstep georgia wants a slice of that pie and many small companies are ready for business from the new silk road. for the guards is a family get together like this doesn't happen so often anymore they're all looking

after their businesses and son jordi now works in china as a marketing expert everyone here depends on chinese firms for their livelihoods. to speak mandarin casually discuss the menu with a chinese restaurant staff. or shall i thank you mother because it's through using our whole family is connected to china. and. this new luxury hotel is a few kilometers from tbilisi it belongs to the chinese quarreling group the director is a friend of a family restaurant many guests here but the boss is thinking long he's been in tbilisi for eighty years and has invested millions of chinese business park is due to be built close by with shops restaurants and a massive fim park. first they'll be a lot of concrete then many trees will be planted because that will look nice and

be good for the environment because. this is the entrance to the business part vacant land all owned by chinese investors a few months ago the biggest shopping mall in the caucuses opened here one hundred fifty thousand square metres of retail space but customers are scarce it's simply too far from the city center and western brands are not on offer. there are some shops like this for key. if you want to buy some furniture and other things you can come here and buy. as mandarin lessons at the bend or kids' agrarian university in tbilisi the teacher is annie's mother. she can't complain about lack of interest there are more students studying chinese than russian here. i study china's because i see that in some more perspective language in the world and also

china invest in new ways to much money in georgia we already have a good relation with chinese people and i think that we will we have to continue this relation you know the dog was a family know their future is with china and it's a sure thing that their youngest member is going to grow up speaking mandarin. one of the most important commodities on that ancient silk road with spice pepper for example was only for the rich today everyone can afford it thanks in part to spice companies like german imports of folks folks dominates the german market for spices with an eighty percent share a husband and wife team from hamburg is making fast inroads into that market partly by using a clever social media strategy have a look little idea is helping out today the creators of put their heart and soul into their business and they're getting some good footage for their you tube

channel. if you go we like to wish you a merry christmas next week there won't be cookies but rather steaks again the limpers are eager to expand their business. we notice that our customers like to watch our videos and what could be better than making videos of us cooking baking and grilling we can show our spices and all the things we make with them and . we provide insights into our production and don't have any secrets we're open and honest about how we do it and you can follow us on all the social media channels. the company has made an impact on the conservative german spice market due to t.v. appearances and elaborate marketing crowd has been able to rival market leader foods in just four years spice mixtures are especially popular like pepper. you meat and hearty roast goose the company's sixty five employees are used to the

unusual fragrances. and then you don't smell anymore you don't notice it when in the evening when you come home you need an hour or two to perceive any orders again and. again exclusively with online sales but it now plans to expand to supermarkets across germany to do that its product range has to be complete when raw materials are expensive it has to look for alternatives. i'm going to move a quantity we could buy lower quality but we don't do that because quality is very important to us so we said that first we'll remove some recipes and certain spices from the market or to give a sort of routes to. deafen limca likes looking for alternatives since his childhood in tanzania he's been fascinated with exotic spices and once wanted to become a cook even though he chose to work in the media industry he continued to experiment with spice mixtures amid rapid growth he could no longer do everything himself third yes or no i really did make the first one hundred mixers myself but now we

depend on our employees who are very good at this but i still allow myself to taste every spice which definitely causes some irritation. of myself to act. on average one hundred grams of spice costs six to seven euros certainly not a bargain but the limit is want to distance themselves from mass produced products and plastic containers and i did jesus that when we take all these steps and everything we do to make our brand what it is customers do notice it and perhaps then they'll choose to buy from us instead of buying from the monopolies. but fundies want to name one or. more police and. it looks like customers are doing just that during the christmas season the company has been working at full production. well before i let you go i own happening to look to buy a skyscraper maybe one who isn't a chinese court is auctioning off

a thirty nine floor building in taiwan in the northern chung's the province the online auction is held on tao bao that's ali baba's e-commerce platform and it's the biggest yes for the site of the starting price of over eight hundred million dollars the buy a will have to spend quite a bit more as pictures show only a hot finished building exists dimly lit and full of dust many chinese courts opening of goods on the web including cars jewelry and recently even several boeing seven four seven jumbo jets. well that's it for me on the business team here and more news on the w. for you that's all theology and before you go have a look. at this hour thank you very much for watching business but.

it's polluting our water. and killing seed. plastic waste. some of it invisible to the naked eye. how your laundry and

socks in the antarctic ocean. tomorrow today next. we show you and you click to your next on facebook. which many is for your favorites in twenty seven c. it's the cream of the crown. i'm ranking of the twenty five most popular. every day this week. in sixty minutes d w. where i come from we have to fight for a free press and was born and raised in a military dictatorship with just one t.v. shadow and if your newspapers when official information as a journalist i have work all of the strength of many cameras and they have problems

are always the same forward to social inequality a lack of the freedom of the press. corruption gun afford to stay silent when it comes to the fans of the humans and seem right to fold who have decided to put their trust in us. maimed is jenny harrison i work a day. your tune to tomorrow today coming up. ocean pollution plastic in the antarctic. cleaning up water treatment for the future.