this is news live from berlin the nobel literature prize will not be awarded this year tarnished by sex abuse and finance scandals the swedish academy says the decision was made to regain public trust but it is the first time in decades the annual prize will not be handed out also coming up germany's defense minister calls for a vast overhaul of the country's armed forces to focus on national security over foreign missions but it comes with a hefty price tag. and later in business from a chief executive to chief suspect u.s.

prosecutors charged volkswagens former boss for his part in the company's falls of the cation on a mission data they say he knew about the cheating. i'm sumi so much got the good to have you with us the swedish academy has announced that it will not award the nobel prize for literature this year it says it will instead award two prizes in two thousand and nineteen the institution is in crisis over its handling of sexual assault allegations against the husband of one of its members the scandal has seen a string of board members leave in recent weeks the prize for house for over one hundred years crowned what many view as the world's best writers but it has not always been free of controversy. the nobel prize in literature an award to quote denote the most outstanding work in an outstanding direction the can for the

greatest good on mankind that was alfred nobel's wish when he founded the award one hundred seventeen years ago over the past century that the war has been given to people as diverse as thomas mann ernest hemingway and winston churchill for their contributions to world literature but it's more than just a celebration of the world's literary canon the noble prize has often helped more obscure authors find wide readership. and the swedish academy that oversees the prize has been accused of taking political positions as well. like with their selection of said london alexi of each the belorussian journalist is a prominent critic of russian president vladimir putin and was selected for a nonfiction works dealing with the collapse of the soviet union. the decision to award the prize to bob dylan in two thousand and sixteen for his lyrical work caused controversy especially when the american singer songwriter seemed to ignore it for weeks afterward when academy remember reportedly called him rude and arrogant while the nobel prize for literature has had its detractors throughout its

history it still remains the most visible and rolled include every prize in the world. and we have karen hopes that from d.w. culture with us following this story hi karen hi so why are we seeing this decision now ok so this whole mess is obviously surrounding the photographer and cultural figure actually no no he is mentioned the husband of cutting a who's an academy member and poet and there are several reasons that's why this is happening because there are several things that he's a civil accusations against him first and foremost obviously multiple allegations of sexual misconduct over a very long period from about ninety six to two thousand and seventeen and apparently he has even groped a behind of the swedish crown princess so that's the biggest one corruption also comes into it because his wife lost and son was also involved in funneling and funding monies into his very own cultural institutions so there's

a definite conflict of interest there and thirdly that he repeatedly broke century old academy rules by actually leaking the names of nobel prize winners most recently the name of bob dylan back in two thousand and sixteen so he is denying all of these allegations which started coming out last fall and at that time already three academy members stepped down in protest over the fact that the academy was not prepared to expel faustin son i mean well they've been months of inviting very unpleasant further resignations and the academy has eighteen members they're appointed for life and when they step down like this they actually leave an empty chair so they need twelve members to make a valid decision they're not. left with only ten and so they've said that literally because of this diminished academy and of course the lack of public confidence that they've decided to have to sit a year out and out of respect for the laureates as well was certainly a black eye for the academy what does that do to its reputation it's absolutely

devastating i mean if you think that we've really held this institution up for years as a sort of a pinnacle of. of goodness globally respected the academy was founded two hundred thirty years ago by the swedish king called stuff the third at the time it's had a stellar reputation ever since prize has gone to the world's greatest writers and interesting lay it has been cancelled before but mostly for wartime reasons and it has also not been awarded in the sense that it has been put on reserve that's also happened in number of times for they felt that the writers just simply weren't meeting the criteria that there wasn't really a valid to recipient in that in those years what do you think the wider implications are going to be of this decision well it's really interesting that as i said the swedish allegations came out last fall that was in november when the need to movement was really gathering momentum and i think what we're seeing here is we're having we're seeing need to have a real effect on some of the world's major institutions and we just have to look

across the pond at what happened yesterday in the u.s. economy of motion picture arts and sciences expels actor bill cosby and director roman polanski from their ranks that was a lot of decision that was a long time coming cosby of course recently convicted for sexual assault and could face up to thirty years in prison and polanski as we know has been wanted for decades in the u.s. for statutory rape so. i think we're sure to see more of this kind of thing i think there's a definitely a new acceptance of women bringing their stories forward and obviously incredible public pressure when these things come out to not. to people as this kind of predatory behavior and abuse of power so certainly more heads are going to roll with it's a story that's going to continue no falling yes all right karen holmes there from d.w. culture thank you very much for your analysis. not some other stories making news around the world social media site twitter has urged its more than three hundred

million users to change their passwords the company says it recently found a bug had caused some passwords to be stored in plain text rather than being encrypted it says there was no indication the passwords had been misused and that its advice was purely precautionary. preliminary preliminary results from local elections in the u.k. suggested british prime minister theresa may has been spared the wipe out that some have predicted her conservative party has lost control of some key councils but managed to gain ground and break that supporting regions the vote was the first test of public opinion since last year's general election. the new u.s. ambassador to germany richard grinnell has been sworn into office the post had been vacant for more than a year for now as one of trump's most prominent gay appointees his confirmation had been delayed by democrats opposed to his conservative positions and allegedly derogatory comments about women. germany's defense minister also last underline says she is planning

a massive restructuring of the country's military the bundeswehr in a draft position paper obtained by a german newspaper funded by and says that the armed forces should focus on national security in the past the point is for has been oriented towards foreign missions such as peacekeeping in afghanistan the german military has been hit recently by reports that much of its equipment is out of date and not functioning from the line has said she needs twelve billion euros in additional funds over the next four years to rectify the situation. political correspondent hans front is following the story for us hi hans so what is behind this plan to scale back these overseas missions is it then the lack of funds and faulty equipment. well i think one has to say it's not a scaling down of foreign minister missions it's a scaling up of the national of the domestic mission and certainly the lack of equipment all the faulty equipment has something to do with that germany for instance has several helicopters that many of them can fly at the moment for like

a spare parts the same goes for things such as trucks and tons so there certainly is a very significant backlog in trying to get things up to speed again whatever the overseas missions where german soldiers are involved and could we actually see them withdrawn all the major missions that in afghanistan where germany's involved in the nato campaign to support the afghan government and most recently germany has started a new mission in iraq which is going to be scaled up in fact there for some time in northern iraq kurdish fighters have been trained by german soldiers and all this training mission is going to be extended to the whole of iraq that seems to indicate that there is at the moment no plan to scale back to withdraw all soldiers from these foreign missions at the same time there is obviously some very urgent need to improve the army and the army's capacity here at home that's right there's

life on the line the defense minister says she wants to see the bundeswehr focus more on national security at home but is that allowed and what kind of tasks are we talking about. well obviously this does not mean that the bundeswehr will take over kind of policing duty security duties on german territory if that is in fact not a law that is the duty of the police what we're talking about here is the more traditional role of an army to defend the territory of the country for which the army has been you know put together and that is something that has been scaled back in germany in the last decade or two because after the end of the world after the end of the cold war one had the feeling that there was not such a big threat anymore especially from the soviet union from russia this is says and his knowledge changed there is a feeling that there is more of a security issue in the east of europe from russia from ukraine the border of ukraine obviously is very tense the annexation of the crimea was

a warning signal as a result of that there is a feeling that the german army needs to concentrate more again on defending german and european territory obviously in alliance with with nato partners and that a lot of money is necessary to rebuild to that for that section of the army which in the last ten or twenty years to a large extent was ignored. reporting for us thank you hans this saturday marks the two hundredth birthday of perhaps the most divisive political and economic thinker of modern history karl marx he argued that capitalism would only make the rich richer and the poor poorer as today some view him as a visionary others revile him for inspiring authoritarian communist regimes our reporter on your shopping court hit the streets of berlin to find out what people here think. marx's ideas sparked revolutions those ideas originated here in berlin and they continue to resonate in the city.

in eight hundred thirty six the eighteen year old car marks came to study at berlin's university. he started studying law but soon found he was far more interested in philosophy and history quite in the entrance hall of the university of tribute to its former student. marks wrote the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways the point however is to change it locks didn't just want to theorize about the state of the world he wanted to do something about it he wanted to shake things up. it was the tone of the industrial age and while in berlin marx witnessed the plight of poor workers. it was their cause that marx took up his theories of eliminating social injustice by empowering workers started revolutions and changed the map of the world. his ideology

was the basis for modern communism and socialism the defining philosophies of the cold war which ended up dividing the world and the city. in former east berlin a launch of a new still bears marx's name the boulevard was built as a propaganda project by the socialist regime by the workers for the workers. the last military parade to celebrate the achievements of the self-styled workers and peasants state was held here just a month before the berlin wall fell. but what does maag still mean to people here that the w.p. had a kind of different idea of how society should work. it all off was he runs a lot of good stuff. capital for example which is still valid today this is my thoughts of reading the communist manifesto but you've got to have quite a bit of concentration for them do you know this man. he was

a great thinker in this time of course unfortunately things didn't quite turn out the way he predicted but always because of the invoice. to show my. book definitely good. things that's a really just as worthy of discussion today. especially now considering the split in society between rich and poor because of business by them through. communism as a political system in germany much of poland with a balance but for some of the people here knox is. not of their relevance. you're watching d.w. news u.s. authorities have formally charged former c.e.o. mark invent a plan for his alleged involvement in the diesel and missions scandal prosecutors say vento knew it was happening. there had offers we'll have that story for you

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