metropolis of crime. starts january twenty ninth on. new years of life from that i'm emotional plea from germany to britain leading german personalities published an open letter in the times newspaper asking the british people to abandon and stay in the european union and bring you reaction from law also on the program as u.s. president donald trump marks two b.s. of the white house explosive new allegations that he directed his former lawyer to lie to congress about his dealings in russia. to washington. germany becomes the

latest country to consider excluding the chinese tech giant twilight from its high speed network. it has concerns about national security. i'm phil gal welcome to the program more than twenty eight leading figures from german politics sports business and entertainment have appealed to the u.k. to abandon it they opened last episode in today's times newspaper and among the signatures of the new head of a medical c.v. you party. the head of germany's social democratic party nonis and green party leader robert hop back in trades after the horrors of the second world war britain did not give up on us it has welcomed germany back as a software nation and the european power of this we as germans have not forgotten and we all grateful. should britain wish to leave the european union for good it

will always have friends in germany and europe but britain should equally know that we believe no choice is irreversible our door will always remain open europe is home we would miss the legendary british black humor more than anything else we would miss the british people our friends across the channel four britons should know from the bottom of our hearts we want them to stay well let's go to london then i get a reaction from my d.w.i. correspondent. welcome back at how has this letter been received. well we don't have as far as i know an official reaction but if by any of the government figures but i've looked at the newspaper headlines and it has been reported even though it's not exactly headline news because there's so much going on in terms of president as an absolute chaotic situation where the u.k. is trying to figure out where it wants to go so it has been

a system for example the financial times the business paper said it's reflects a rising anxiety in berlin in terms of the cost of business so it's the fear of the heartbreaks it and this is a reaction to it then we have the sun the biggest tabloid they say they report well germany is begging us to stay in the e.u. and similar the express and other tabloid and both the my leaning towards brics if they say it's a desperate desperate bid for britain to stay in the european union i haven't seen a lot of scathing criticism but it's certainly seen as something that is political and it's a political intervention so it's not just a heart to heart by by leading german figures but it is something that has yet at the center come from the center of british of german politics really well it's nice to be wanted do you think it's likely to have much of an effect.

personally i think it can harm i have really haven't seen that people are extremely cynical about it here however we need to we need to wait and see how it plays out i think what britain is really hoping for and maybe this is a signal that it's giving hope to the british government that maybe germany might be pushing towards reopening somehow the withdrawal agreement so this is how some are reading this well is this a sign that they are making some more concessions however bricks and tears will say well it also reflects what they've always said that german business is putting pressure on the german government and that they will continue to trade and also continue to pressure the german government to give really favorable conditions for britain so i think everybody is going to read in it whatever they want but i think you know on a human level and as a signal to the british people that i don't see how we can do much on good mass in

london thank you. his german appeal comes at the end of a roller coaster week in british politics with a historic defeat of the prime ministers of brecht's a deal and then how government not only surviving a no confidence vote situation remains deadlocks theresa may is due to present her plan b. next week so what is next for the u.k. you don't lose a shelter in london from some unexpected answers. london business as usual but wait wasn't there something positive oh yeah bracks it for to now have years now we journalists have followed the brits the debates we've watched parliament vote again and again and we spoke to analyst after analyst and we still don't seem to be much smarter about the outcome of that well maybe it's time to look for some chart of ways to find answers if you really want to know on in the british capital ask the cabbies they have the keepers of the city secrets

the ones with the ears on the ground. as she. has been driving a cab for ten years and discussions center on one thing in particular i mean that's all i ever talk about is. there are there is there is no subject not even not even football is just. what i believe what what what what i think is going to happen so what is going to happen to me let's pull over for this one. to say effect in is coming in more people i would say all all interested in the in the. in having a second vote. ok that's a start but can we make this more concrete i'm like politicians numbers never lie and to squat at that british automaker's of course at a major bookie company in london politics is

a big money maker so what do people think about that. we don't actually put their money where their mouth is so out of all the options a country currently faces that's a second referendum the palm just think is the most likely that's followed by another general election obviously something that surely corbin would love and the least likely at the moment is actually an ideal which is the odds of six to one punters do not think that is probably going to happen at this stage but we're money is one it's the last and with bricks it's all about winning let's find spiritual guidance maybe big ghosts of that church will have the answer. is well connected in that area and he's getting vibes that prime minister teresa mayes is playing dirty game i think she's going to make another pact the devil. i think she's going to look at we have here we have the devil we have temperance so

the devil is all about me having contracts and making a pact and here temperance is about connecting things and putting things together and so i think she's going to find a way. to negotiate something. let's be honest the future of britain is still murky until that's resolved all bets are off. let's take a look now at some of the other stories making news around the world sweden's parliament has reelected prime minister stuff and led to a second term in a confidence vote that ended a four month political power vacuum is social democrats and the greens will form a minority party a minority government with the backing of two center right parties across party deal was struck to keep the far right populist sweden democrats out of. a car bomb has exploded outside a police academy in the colombian capital bug least twenty one people and injuring

dozens more is sort of being carried out by fifty seven year old man with links to the national liberation army guerrilla group. united states has announced that it will. but it will not attend the world economic forum in davos at the constellation comes amidst the turmoil of the partial u.s. government shutdown the treasury said secretary was to have been part of the u.s. delegation and. u.s. president donald trump and directed his personal attorney michael cohen to lie to congress this is according to a report by buzz feed news citing two unnamed law enforcement officers the president is said to have all of this to come to light about plans to build a trump tower in moscow supporters are coming to meet with russian president vladimir putin to jumpstart the project last year was to come and pleaded guilty to lying to congress about the development of the poses for president trump has repeatedly denied collusion with russia. so let's get more on this from

d.w. correspondent all of a salad in washington welcome all of us if these reports prove to be true how significant ali. well a president tells his lawyer to lie in front of congress that is one thing another thing is negotiating such a huge business project like the mosque called trump towers as an officially candidate for u.s. presidency and this could mean witness tampering as well as obstruction of justice if this turns out to be true of course it's a new quality and what we're witnessing here is pressure again amounting on donald trump from all sides so how are both sides of the political divide reacting to these potentially explosive allegations well it's just another puzzle piece that we're witnessing here but it could really mean a shift in tides if these allegations turn out to be true because the report says

the trump personally directed his lawyer to lie in front of congress about this project and you quality that we're witnessing here the problem being that negotiations were still carried out why he was running for president and the democrats are certainly happy to use this against him some are even calling for impeachment you have the timing is interesting isn't it jerry his record breaking posho government shutdown and this fierce battle between democrats and the president. that's right and if and he's also losing increasingly support of the public if you look at the polls then a majority things that it's his personal fall that we're having this shutdown here are not being solved that he's taking eight hundred thousand federal employees hostage just to realize the wall at the southern border with mexico

a wall that also a majority of them americans don't even want and especially if you listen to critics right now that say that this wall would not even stop people smuggler and trucks modeler from doing their job as are not using the green border but rather official border checking crossings and for that reason many people here are turning against. the shutdown are turning against the policy here of the u.s. president so amidst these latest allegations of this record breaking shutdown the president essentially mocking the midpoint of face to the white house two years it is already organizing his reelection campaign and reshape the republican party and his own image has been to detroit to meet republican voters who say don't trump is the right man for a second term regardless of the skunk it's truly an brothers bakery is a community fixture in this detroit suburb it's one of the few small locally run

operations left every morning for the past forty eight years richard julian has put on his apron and served the neighborhood everything from deli meats to birthday cakes the bakery is also situated on the edge of a county that was pivotal for trump's victory mccomb county outside of detroit julian like some of his employees and many of his customers voted for trump he thinks the president's term has been good for his thirty employees and his bakery donald trump was. a little of this much of a stretch for me in the beginning but when he became the nominee for the party i backed him because he was. businessman this is exactly the sort of small middle american establishment that was at the heart of trump's campaign message to lift up the little guy and stick it to the elites. and celine light of an educator and a neighborhood resident said she was attracted to trump and his message in part because of how different he sounded the more i listened and the more i heard his.

ideas. and. that's what i began to watch i was at first. grade the first debate i was almost inside the t.v. . you know it was just very interesting different and it wasn't state it was just different they don't love everything about him everyone we spoke with mentioned that his tweeting can be cringeworthy that maybe he has a tendency to speak without thinking and sometimes his personal life can be messy but joan for a bakery regular and lifelong michigan resident said despite everything she wants to see the president succeed i'd like to see him take us back to the days when people were paid paul not units or objects or numbers classifications for people where people probably have respect for one another and. i like some of the

things that he's done on those for the moment. i just i really like the man and i want to see him continue with his goals and get most of them accomplished not everyone in the neighborhood is a trump supporter and some family ties have been strained. gary milburn an employee at the bakery has two daughters who do not like trump he says he understood their objections but he still voted for trump. family is not thrilled with me because because you know i did vote for trump you know he's made you know different you know definitely many many excuse me many statements regarding our gravity women by the whatever and doing this and that which to me is a lot of you know a locker room talk. two years into trump's term as president the country is still divided they have been shocking announcement scandals treaties have been torn up would these people vote for trump again and. would you vote for him again yes they

would if you once again i hope. oh i will fall for him again i want this to continue i would vote for him again depending on who he's going to be running against at this stage a true republican challenger looks unlikely during the two thousand and twenty campaign and the democrats will have a tall order to win back the hearts of these voters here in julian's bakery it seems trump would have no trouble getting reelected per second term. or about all of us of us here in washington so i don't know still popular amongst his his base despite the scandal on the shutdown and let's talk about the shutdown any sign of it ending well first of all to his fans and that we could see in the report as well he really kept his promises he fueled the american economy he imposed tariffs he was tough on migrants but there is chaos everywhere you look right now in the government there were fired countless employees and government officials the last being jeff sessions the former attorney

general for not siding with him in the mahler probe and that all all ads on the press the pressure on him right now the government shutdown is just one other piece that is not turning into his favor as we can witness right now all the democrats have to do right now is waits and and wait because the public is turning against him and so eventually he will have to look for compromise here when it comes to the shutdown but it was not as in washington thank you. i germany's foreign minister has urged russia to destroy a controversial missile system to save a nuclear treaty with the united states like o. mouse has been meeting with his russian counterpart sergey lavrov in moscow he said russia could salvage the bilateral intermediate range nuclear forces treaty which has been in place since the soviet era the us has demanded that russia destroys its stockpiles of nine and seven to nine missiles by february claiming that they

violate the i.n.f. treaty. let's get more details there's a correspondent in moscow emily sherman welcome emily tell us more about the outcome of these talks well phil the i.n.f. treaty that you just mentioned was certainly high on the agenda today and in one sense both love rauf and mosse who met today kind of stuck to their positions in russia's case even stuck to their guns russia said again that it did not violate the treaty and that that missile that you mentioned did not violate that treaty love also said that the russian side had offered to the u.s. to actually show them the missile and that the u.s. was absolutely refusing dialogue germany on the other hand mosse today said that that. that basically the accusations surrounding those violations aren't new and

that this is basically too little too late but he also had some concrete suggestions on arms control let's take a look. at the i.m.f. com trying to is not enough it's also important that we put control in general only international agenda i'm committed to this even though i know that it's a tough task and over as far as this is the start one. it seemed today that mosque was in a sense preparing for. for the us leaving the i.n.f. treaty he suggested an international conference next spring on arms control where as he said all several countries could discuss first of all regulating new weapons including as he said cyber weapons and also that conference could get into the fold of arms control not only russia and the u.s. but other countries including as he said china and love are offset that he was open

to collectively discussing the question of arms control so that could be a sign for progress coming up on arms on that arms treaty heiko must travels to kiev later for talks with ukraine's foreign minister one presumes that tensions between the russia and ukraine behind jens as well yes absolutely and when it comes to ukraine also had a concrete suggestion he suggested or he proposed a written proposal to lover off today put that forward to the russian foreign minister about observers french and german observers on the current strait who would observe that the sea and make sure that the current strait remains open and that was a suggestion that we actually saw last year as well but this was being put into writing but judging from judging from the reaction from the russian side today

tensions are likely to continue between ukraine and russia love roath did say he was open to observers but his tone when it comes to ukraine was rather negative throughout to say the least a million sure would be in moscow thank you. so they can look at some sport on the bones as they can returns from its winter break this weekend league leaders dortmund against leipzig in saturday's late game after an impressive first half of the campaign dortmund could finally stop by and your next run of six consecutive bundesliga titles. there's plenty of anticipation in dortmund they sit comfortably top of the table with a six point lead and complacency may be their biggest rival going forward and into the disease it's a good situation to be in but we know there are seventeen more games and that it's still a long season ahead there are big challenges and difficult games to play especially in the next few weeks pressure to perform dortmund dominated the opening half of

the season with fast paced entertaining play they'll have to hit the ground running straight away with their first opponents fourth placed leipsic coach lucian five expects a tough away trip. is in dangerous in possession but also on the counter-attack they can also play along with their target of laos and. transition really really quickly he communions so there's not much else to say about life there are very good team is in the stand is a bunch of dampening the mood somewhat is the recent illness of captain marco royce cossar is also only just coming back from injury together they've scored twenty three goals over half of the total the team also looked shaky in recent friendly matches. the christmas season then new year's eve then you spend time at a sunny beach in dubai or somewhere and you look at the table and everyone is

passing you on the. perfect lee normal for the tension to lessen but we can't let that affect us if we must maintain off with the same approach we had my first half of the season in the economy think like an on. that's. statistics point towards a successful second of the season don't mean have little league three times at the halfway mark and each time they won the title not a bad omen. for business use with helena humphrey all right phil thank you very much well the german government says that it may well all quote weighs involvement in its future high speed five g. network site saying national security concerns in response the federation of industry says until evidence is found no vendors should be excluded from the network will the united states and other countries are keeping the chinese firm

away from that five g. networks because of data security they say the company's link to the government in beijing increases the likelihood of cyber espionage the u.s. is carrying out a criminal probe into the tech giant. so why is quote way so controversial well a company was founded in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven inch and sent by a former military engineer and communist party member and it began to sell telephone switching equipment to chinese phone companies and it's now the world's number one provider of wireless network hardware now the company is private so that essentially means that doesn't have to disclose its finances weiwei says shares are divided between eighty thousand employees in china who don't have real voting rights and critics claim that an elite cool of manages controlled the company and coordinate with the government aid beijing chua way denies that but the u.s. is now pressuring allies to exclude huawei as they roll out five g.

networks so far japan australia new zealand and taiwan will all of these countries agree on that and one of the u.k.'s largest carries is also rejecting the company now germany remains uncertain with industry telling the government in in five g. is unimaginable without qual ways hard west say for more on this let's bring in our financial correspondent daniel who is with us now he joins us from the french but stock exchange and don't you want to trade is where you are make a quiet way. well i don't know they're a little bit divided about this issue in general they think that chinese tech companies such as who are way that they're very interesting for them on the other hand they also are telling us that they think it would be too risky if for example . and vodafone those are the two big telephone companies here in germany if they really continue doing business with the company and you know to invest a lot of money because yes there could be the risk at the end there then the

investment is not going to pay off so there is some concern here from investors and seemingly in stark contrast to all of that we see in sin growing optimism over upcoming trade talks yes between the u.s. and china tell us more about that. yeah exactly i guess you can see it in the background the blue chip index texas making quite a jump today we are here in the green with more move to more than two and a half percent at the moment also the dow jones in. the united states is rallying in the green with more than one percent this is happening after it seems to be possible that's what we're hearing that there could be a compromise in the ongoing a trade conflict between the united states and china this is also happening after already yesterday the fine and secretary of the united states stated that that he is considering a proposal to lift some or maybe all u.s. tears on chinese goods in order to get an agreement with beijing in the upcoming

weeks we have to remember that by the end of the month the chinese and u.s. officials will be meeting again to talk about trade and how to do business in the future financial correspondent daniel cooper to frankfurt stock exchange thank you . i pray for mine and all of the top story we're following for you twenty leading german personalities of published in a pronouncer in the times newspaper in the british people to abandon break instead of the european union the signature east is the new head off chance and i'm going to see the new policy on a great catabolic. you know watching the news from ballet more coming up at the top of the hour for the latest is always available on our website e.w. dot com and.

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