even our boss was attacked with tear gas. we need to find a solution for youth politicians raised our living costs but why don't they take a peek and we have to suffer taking two buses to the factory town just a hundred euros. one protester paid with his life and dozens more have been injured as economic hardship leaves its mark on she. let's bring in simon speakman cordell a freelance journalist in tunis who was standing by for us hi simon the economy in tunisia has been lagging for some time so why are we seeing these protests erupt now i think there's been growing anger growing anger that is something he does. as you said the economy is still languishing. and we generally have a series of protests that seem to break out we had one two years ago we have the current now but the current of now. seems to be escalating. as we

continue we had trouble all last night. this is because those are of the arrests you see there so we'll have to see what's not but i think it's important to say that a lot of the protests were quite good models are in the just much doesn't begin to go overshadow some of the violence that we've been seeing in places like here so i may say some of the demands are legitimate what are they demanding. well you want the budget for this year to be looked at again they've imposed a flat tax on many of the staple goods that households buy in real time that means the poor paying a higher percentage of that income than the rich i think people would like to see perhaps progressive taxation they would like to see. perhaps the rich i don't think that uses. reestablishing themselves now since the revolution pay their share of the character of the country that's which pretty significant. i mean it's been

seven years since the arab spring revolution tunisia was the cradle of that revolution is often held up as a signal of democratic progress but what has actually changed since then and what hasn't. very little we've seen it sort of. in that in the years following the revolution result huge amounts of personal freedom we saw some degree of accountability the crimes of the autocracy introduced and we so perhaps a real reckoning with the past the current government under the mantra stability has turned around many of those things the reconciliation act was passed late last year given amnesty the civil service the parties all the polls dissipated either acts of corruption or might be accused of acts of corruption i get and people are very angry about. this it has security to go on the to the boats it's not yet which

will also grab a potential amnesty in the use of deadly force and people really are seeing a return to the old obviously but this time of the month a mole. a journalist assignment speakman cordell for us in tunis thank you very much for that update. now there is a seventy percent chance of success that is the verdict of one senior german politician on the exploratory coalition talks between chancellor angela merkel's conservatives and the social democrats almost four months after voters went to the polls the parties have set themselves a deadline of today to decide whether they can agree on terms america's conservative bloc is sitting down for its fifth day of discussions with the center left as a lead by martin shuls the two sides are said to have made progress on issues like taxation and clean energy but they've left the more sensitive policy disagreements until today if successful the parties will enter into formal coalition goshi

actions if not germany could face fresh elections and that means an uncertain future for chancellor merkel. let's bring in our political correspondent michelle akers now with us here in studio michelle good morning to you what is the thirty percent that is keeping the two sides apart. well there's a lot on substance and now this new is the self set finishing line that i believe could well be extended into friday but that's not hold our breath on that. it gets to the issues that are at the hospital what these parties stand for and there we see taxation the question of social justice here in germany was something that the social democrats really tried to fight an election campaign on and didn't really get that point across what it has to this time around so what will the top tax rate be that's the big question hanging in the room now and of course the issue of migration and then we're not talking about large numbers necessarily but the principle whether the social democrats will go along and once again extend

basically a poor's in letting migrants asylum seekers here and only with less aside in status bring their relatives to germany we saw a lot of juggling of figures that we're hearing now a number of potentially forty thousand that would be allowed to come and join their relatives here in germany and the question here is will the c.d.u. get the social democrats to sign up to that again and will that be interpreted amongst the social democrat party base shifting on principle even if they do reach an agreement on those issues the hardest work is still ahead isn't it absolutely and that what is not necessarily then in what will be set in stone because let's just bear in mind that the proper talks are still ahead if the social democrat party conference agrees to this but this is so much psychology in this i mean we're hearing this once you politician say well he believes there's a seventy percent chance of than actually being able to launch these formal talks

at the same time we hear from the social democrat side the head of the usual denies a shift in social democrats basically calling on the whole party saying it's not to late to stop this. and he will certainly be appealing to the delegates meeting on the twenty first of january who will have to give the green light for the talks to go ahead if they do give the green light and we see this continuation of this grand coalition will this new government have the power it needs to implement necessary reforms that's the big question it certainly has the majority in parliament so in theory a so-called grand coalition could do whatever it likes the big question the voters had is well why didn't you do it before on issues like having a proper digital infrastructure in every part of germany these are issues that we discovered in the last election campaign and that also shows a certain credibility gap and whether this time will be different and here the onus is on martin schultz less so on german chancellor angela merkel because he

basically said he would put whatever comes out of even successful coalition talks to his own party base which will get to decide so basically social democratic party members will decide whether there will be a continuation of a ground listen here and even if there is a deal there's a lot success at stake and he has to convince his own party eventually to actually . to go ahead with what she wants to to remain tonsil in a grand coalition the first step is that a self-imposed deadline today michel of following this story for us thank you very much. now to some other stories making news around the world the death toll from the devastating mudslides and flooding that hit southern california earlier this week has risen to seventeen authorities are continuing to search for over a dozen people who are still missing the mudslides destroyed around one hundred homes and damaged some three hundred more. armed robbers have smashed windows at paris's ritz hotel and made off with jewels and other luxury goods three suspects were

arrested and two are believed to be on the run it's estimated that some five million dollars worth of jewels were taken. there's been some relief for the roughly thirteen thousand tourists trapped in the swiss ski resort of their march due to heavy snowfall trains resumed service wednesday after being cut off for two days and helicopter left have also been heading to the resort. turning now to pakistan and a city struck by a wave of child killings that has sparked an outpouring of public anger protesters took to the streets of cars who are on wednesday outraged over what they called police in action in the wake of the latest rape and murder of a young girl in the city several miners have been sexually assaulted then killed there over the past year with police making no apparent headway in finding the perpetrators. the body of little zainab i'm sorry born by c. of morn is in her hometown of. last week the eight year old was led away by this

man she was then raped and murdered. her body disposed of in a rubbish tip. the town of consumer came together in prayer on the day off the funeral shopkeepers shutting up shop as a mark of respect. she was the twelfth girl to be abducted raped and murdered in the district in the past year but in the face of heavy police presence the crowd sunni rhapsode. police in the east punjabi town reacted by apparently firing live rounds into the crowd. the result another two people dead. police said they reacted to aggression from locals who had attacked the police station but same aps father said he would not vary his stores or until justice is done.

for them again one of the lot of i have just learned that police fired at people and that two people are now dead i'm going to find out what happened we're going to try not to bury our child until the issue has been resolved properly. doesn't it alexander the same ups uncle said the family wanted the perpetrator alive and no more innocent people killed. the police should knock out some innocent passion and tell us the we have no got justice if you're going to have a mulligan the whole high court's chief justice has ordered an investigation into zainab samantha but with residents fear is that what they see as a failure to properly investigate previous abductions they could well be more protests to come. french actress catherine to new vendor at least another one hundred women have signed an open letter criticizing the need to movement they accuse its supporters of underestimating women's ability to say no and of ruining the lives so innocent men but the nerves critics have condemned her

remarks with some calling her an apologist for rape. some french women are using satire to respond to sexism in their country. of a longing for. the right music studio was. used to say when i was inside the. movie. an unknown loser yes. but catherine don't know this and joking the french film icon has defended the gaelic culture of flirtation and gallantry for her and ninety nine other women the debate about sexual harassment goes too far in an open letter published in the newspaper le monde they say we defend the right to bother another it is essential for sexual freedom this current campaign denounces men and creates a new puritanism. who

know there's a great danger that no man will deficit use of women but even more so is the danger that some kind of new norm will be introduced in relationships between men and women. sexuality cons because you find you just can't stand it dies it says. the news vanco are targeting women who they say are exaggerating not all of whom have complained about groping and abuse since the weinstein affair under the hash tag long stone book or squeal on your pig thousands of women have described their own traumatic experiences catherine deneuve an intervention has triggered an online backlash. it's something on of his oric knows all too well five years ago she started to hash tag outcry in germany. the nerves open letter rang through your warning bells for her. these are the dynamics

that we've seen so far in every debate on sexism just as we saw in the german sixes and debate. it is of course sad that someone as privileged as catherine deneuve sends a message to victims that say's what they want what they are is too much or unreasonable the authors of the open letter say they're surprised by the massive rejection of their message this debate has exposed the split among french women in the battle against sexual harassment now china's economy was still running fast and furious last year but what about your thousand eight hundred card is here with more on that well thanks jim yes last year wasn't as bad as many have predicted growth slowed but the world bank's update says china's twenty seven thousand g.d.p. was still growing by six point eight percent driven by exports and a government supported construction boom for this year beijing forecasts six and a half percent growth and the world bank agrees business confidence is high as the

government tries to transform the economy in part because of environmental concerns from low prize mass production to globally competitive quality exports shot so all those moderately well from a beijing perspective but political and economic changes are afoot what will twenty eighteen bring for the chinese economy catherine young from the village international joins us now from hong kong to discuss just that catherine where you see the chinese economy headed in twenty eighty. this year the economy looks in pretty good shape so if we cost our minds back we really saw the chinese economy bottom out in the first quarter of twenty sixteen so the past eighteen months we've seen a stable but consistent recovery and we expect this to continue just taking a few things for example the property market yet remain fairly buoyant last year transactions are likely to slow but property developers unlikely to increase their

investment the government likely to cut back on some of their investment related infrastructure but offsetting this is going to be a pickup in corporate investment consumption still booming along quite nicely so really the wild card is exports and that's really dependent on the global to bond situation ok so how has that played out in next few markets and what will it mean for twenty two. well interestingly even though we have seen this broad based recovery in the economy it hasn't been reflected in the stock market the chinese market in us all the terms up around fifty percent to twenty seventeen but it really was a very concentrated rally in terms of the stocks that people were buying very much a few names in a few sectors such as technology such as property i think of to names in hong kong to property companies which are up four hundred percent over the one year period so

this year it's likely will see more of a broad based sort of interest in other sectors of the market not just confined to let's say consumer as well as technology yes what will be the interesting sectors this year what should investors be focusing on in twenty eight. when we look at the market itself you can really break up the sectors in the stocks into value names so those names which are cheap and so under under look to under go out of favor both by investors and then the growth names so names such as cover those probably names i mentioned as well as the tech related names so in the virus like this where growth has been trading at a forty percent premium to the value part of the market it's likely that the value sector could do well with the banks whether it's insurance whether it's consumer staples but it is really it's again this year like or year when it comes to china very very stock specific on the fundamentals or what's driving company profits

going forward. from the delta international joining us from thank you very much carmakers using their consumer electronics show in las vegas as a forum to show off their newfound tech and green credentials they're desperate to promise us low emissions driving technology within a matter of years not decades and this year the demonstrations begin even before you get to the conventions. the vision of a driverless future is already taking shape before a visit even reaches the c.e.o.'s. self driving taxis like this b.m.w. awaiting to take them there. for now there's still a human driver on hand for emergencies but on this trip he's not needed. it has three able to succeed.