say the discovery could help shed new light on the ancient maya civilization. the cave was identified after divers spent months exploring a maze of underwater channel it's. all from us at the top of the hour in the meantime have heard you can always follow us on twitter and on facebook you're watching tito being used to stay with us. chopin for the twenty first century. only illtreat for an hour. unique interpretation of. a tasman concert and the world of a young piano showing there. are twenty one presents johnny in a tree for now a new show. starting january twentieth on d.w. . every journey begins with the first step and every language with the first word.

rico is in germany to learn german why not learn a little simple online on your mobile three. d. w. e learning course the german media see. the e.u. back flips on its tax haven blacklist a month after naming and shaming over a dozen nations european union prepares to delist about half of the. coin takes another bashing cryptocurrency continues its fall over regulation fears and smart cities of the future idea hamburg undergoes a digital transformation. and let's do business tax havens a top of the agenda today but the bloc isn't writing up

a list of havens it did that last month this month it's with laying down the list activists a shocked e.u. authorities argue this is progress at its best i'll explain seventeen countries were named and shamed on the list published back in december many of them was smaller islands in the caribbean and the pacific officials now expect remove eight of those countries next week after they've made new commitments to reform they include south korea one of the world's largest economies the united arab emirates one of the largest arab economies and panama long a haven for offshore accounts so is this a breakthrough or is europe's campaign against tax havens breaking apart max heywood joins us now from transparency international in our brussels bureau good to see there max could you explain to me first of all what these new commitments are.

i actually i wish i could because it is quite unclear to us this whole process has been quite intern's frnt so from the very beginning when this blacklist was put together the criteria were not fully explained and the assessments by which countries were evaluated in order to decide who's on or off the list but also not clear from the very beginning so from a civil society perspective looking at it from the outside the public just doesn't have enough information to assess how these decisions are being made the whole process has been remarkably entrance about well it sounds like the wrong approach from the e.u. i mean it's trying to get tax transparency on the list that's not transparent. absolutely and the thing is that there are better ways of doing it than simply binding in practice where countries are either in or they're out for example what the e.u. could do is refer to various other measures of transparency that look at all countries and for example say we are going to look at an independent measure of the

transparency of these countries and then take this isn't based on that rather than building their own criteria and their own assessments and they're not making them fully public this would help all of us journalists and civil society in the general public to make a fair assessment of these measures it's an interesting point you're making because basically what we're seeing here is the putting pressure on a number of small islands while. letting its own e.u. member states and other jurisdictions in europe. basically run free. absolutely there's been an independent assessment for example done by done by oxfam who looked at the use announce criteria and they found e.u. countries like the netherlands like luxembourg that should have been on the e.u. zone list but once again this goes back to the lack of transparency around the process of building the list itself and the sad thing is that there are other measures that the e.u. could be taking for example around the transparency of multinational corporations

which are slowly moving through different parts of the legislative process but not fast enough so in a way we could be focusing on other aspects of this and sponsored genda much more effectively than this constant battle of lists which becomes political very fast now you tell me you don't know the actual details of these new commitments the tax reform that these countries are making to get them off the lists but you do know about the processes involved and how this sort of research is done explain to me how the e.u. can come up with a blacklist which is taking years i mean even to define what a tax haven is has been a huge process for the e.u. but then just one month later the e.u. manages to cut this lift list in half how is that possible. yes again this is just a function where these processes become inherently political when you have the same

people trying to assess the criteria and then measure countries against that criteria and then make decisions ideally these processes would be links to independent ratings for example our colleagues in the tax us this network a fellow in geo going to produce an index called the financial secrecy index is coming out at the end of january why not refer to that an independent assessment of the transparency of each country of about half the countries in the world that could be much more objective much easier to use to make these kind of decisions and decide who is or isn't a tax haven according to those criteria just really briefly what's this all doing to competition in europe. well this lack of transparency is definitely not good for competition because for example the lack of transparency around what you know multinationals are doing in different countries the lack of information about different tax deals that are being made in a way undermine the common good of the european union as

a collective so what we need is definitely more transparency measures that really move us forward well battles around very small groups of countries we need an approach that really does include much larger groups of countries and moves them together towards a higher standard thank you very much for the you know alice's. crypto currencies are dividing the financial world and the big coin freefall continues the virtual currency briefly sliding below ten thousand dollars today regulators are spooky investors south korea is hinting at banning trading in digital currencies china is preparing a new crackdown and there are reports the e.u. wants to ban virtual currency owners from remaining anonymous when converting crypto coins to euros. many finance pros believe because it is in a speculative bubble that burst any time it's pulling down you call our financial correspondent in frankfurt don't know what's behind europe's plans first of all. well if there are plans there really have to be at a very early stage we had

a statement little bit earlier from one of the executive board members here of of oneness bank in frankfurt stating yes they are that they are wishing that there would be some sort of regulation but that regulation would only work with a worldwide corporation we are also hearing that france is talking about this also the u.s. senate will have a meeting next month where they will be talking about the risk of crypto currencies and you know we're just talking about bitcoin there are about one thousand crypto currencies in the world and to quantrill all of them would be very very difficult why is there so much resistance coming from asia. a very interesting well there are pretty much the three reasons behind this the are fishel reason that's what they are saying that the trading with bitcoin is really demanding lots of energy off servers and also from computers south korea and china both countries with sometimes problems regarding to the stability of the electricity system then north korea is

also an issue of south korea has been accusing north korea in the past kind of voiding international sanction with using the crypto currency as an investor was telling me well those are countries there are no juice to have things in the business world that are not regulated and they are simply not liking that as well then you're just a yes or no is this the crash everyone was predicting. what i would say yes cryptocurrency girls saying that kalash crash would be even much bigger ok don't you call for us in frankfurt thank you now i love getting on my bike and tearing through the city whizzing past traffic jams avoiding public transport even and setting my own pace but now digital technology is taking the headache out of commuting. hamburg's light rail network is

a good way to get to work during rush hour. and it sensations there are new options for the last like if you trip. they have these cars and over there there are breaks to the sharing services are great it makes it easy to get where you're going. along with links to private car sharing services there's an app that shows you all the other options. to create a platform that does more than display transit options it should let me complete the entire process from leasing to registering and paying. hamburg wants to be a pioneer and smart mobility and intelligent traffic light system is synchronized so that buses won't have to stop at red lights. because the traffic control center software shows how to keep the rest of the traffic flowing soon the system will also tell motorists whether to speed up or slow down to hit the next green light. our focus is communication between traffic lights

and cars the green wave concept will be replaced by a system that tells me how fast to drive so that i won't be forced to stop at a red light. in a big city millions of people are on the move every day. at the hamburg hafen city university researchers are developing digital models that can help architects and city planners streamline urban mobility. one set of tools for example lets planners take residential transit patterns into account when deciding where to build this smart planning table is already helping hamburg improve the ct nation of its construction sites. we're very pleased that we've had some astonishing results the program is very intuitive it's similar to a smartphone or tablet anyone can use it it's no problem and it's helped us

a lot in terms of court nation. your own progress along at c years. now any city department that's planning some construction work can see what else is scheduled nearby. and so that way they can keep some streets free of construction so that traffic will still flow for love or are home movie is no better or. these may all be small improvements but they add up to a city that's on the move or a lasting business with a. bunch

of conflicts only fronting the powerful. this week my guest is mark rey guest the former israeli government spokesman for his country's ambassador yes in light. of the joint. since israel clinic's jerusalem the kind of sick sick sick sick come.

by biting the countdown is on for britain's withdrawal from the european union but . says. the reporters are seeking answers in the year ahead of this pivotal event. today in our series the lives. with different languages we fight for different things that's fine but we all stick up for freedom freedom of speech and freedom of press. giving freedom of choice global news that matters w made for minds. they make a commitment. they find solutions. they inspire. africa the most. stories about people making a difference shaping the nation playing around the continent of africa on the

move the stories about motivational change makers taking their destinies into their own hands w. nothing multimedia seriously. d.w. dot com africa on the move. closer. despite heavy pressure from the united states and israel one hundred twenty eight countries the united nations voted to reject donald trump's decision to recognize jerusalem as israel's capital and move his embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem israel called those countries puppets and said its capital would always be jerusalem this week my guest is mark greg f. the former israeli government spokesman now his country's ambassador here in london over the many years since israel annexed east jerusalem.