between japan and the european union took effect berlin and tokyo explored deeper corp. welcome to d.w. business africa i want to get jones in berlin good to have you with us and the race is on who's going to be the biggest investor in africa china has certainly increased its market share over the past seven years with beijing channeling billions of dollars into expanding its trade relations with the african continent but another major power is also showing growing interest and that is russia in twenty seventeen russian trade with african countries shot up by twenty six percent reaching seventeen point four billion u s dollars and the list of russian companies operating in africa is long rosneft russia's largest oil company is developing oil and gas fields in egypt muslim big and algeria rival new coil house projects in nigeria gonna come the room russian many on group roussel is mining box side in

guinea and a criminal controlled diamond miner is planning to enter sim bob way and already has assets in angola and boats wanna according to the stockholm international peace research institute arms sales also rising rapidly between twenty twelve and twenty seventeen russian arms sales to african countries almost doubled for more on russia's business interests in africa i'm joined by alex vine head africa program at chatham house in london good to have you with us so we already hear that china is a big investor compared to china or the united states for example how does russia compare when it comes to investment in africa. russia's time compared with china or even the united states all the european union it's very very small it's been very very focused on some of the. concessions that you've talked about to be boots. books

site in guinea and defense sales but you've also mentioned what the russians want to get playing catch up and so in twenty nineteen they're planning their first half of russia africa summit for example which will probably be held later this year so what do you think is russia's the strategy for africa is it about getting a piece of the action there is it about controlling vital infrastructure. well it's a mixture of things it is about the content is a it's about strategic minerals it's about. science it's about rare earths it is about mining but it's also about that a significant proportion of the third of the world is in africa or fifty five countries and so it's about the politics of the un general assembly and indeed the un security council so it's also a key driver russian strategy if you turned it around of course africa is rich in natural resources we heard about oil and gas fields of course precious metal. all

of that is there in abundance and it's also a young continent with huge growth potential is any kind of investor wellcome to unlock this potential. it depends on the country so there's room definitely for russian investment russian firms as you've already mentioned already that the ropes ness a result of that so this is about expanding market share i tend to think the russians will be very nice to look at various places and particularly see where there's an overlap with or with things they can offer and mining is clearly going to be one of those areas where they will be in competition i would imagine for example that we'll see the russians much more activity to activity coming as in the democratic republic of the congo all right alex find their head africa program at chatham house in london thank you so much for your insights thank you. well

bumble frames are relatively unknown in the cycling world but that's about to change at least in uganda where a cyclist turned entrepreneur is taking bamboo bikes to the global cycling stage in an industry dominated by steel and alan many of the use of bumble may seem bizarre the. learnt that bamboo bikes are strong light durable and also comfortable. two years of competitive cycling and the writing experience keeps getting better. notes even a tough truck comes to. the modern world i've raced with bamboo bikes for a year and a half now and it's exciting it feels really comfortable with especially on the surfaces compared to bikes with steel frames. by. the bumble bikes are made by nobody in customer who comes from the outskirts of

uganda's capital kampala. this particular frame will get its debut at a competition enough free car customized preparing it for an elite cyclist in europe who will also help promote bumble bikes. i look forward to seeing but guided by x. leaning out on an international. and international brand lineup i look at making bumble bikes be accredited and. approved by the u.c.i. which is the international body consenting with cycling so if we have the bubble bikes start racing and being approved we think we shall beat that question of how strong. this bikes which while much of the walk to place at this single room workshop the process begins rather far away because some of those bumble in synch are uganda and is here to have some of it. we make research on

our own material because we can know how long this has been here we can do any kind of shaping when still even fresh and then we do some carving we need so it will grow with those kind of cards. kushal must seize this particular species much as in three years making a bike frame out of it takes at least three months it finished bumble frame of course at least three hundred dollars and custom are sold over eight hundred of them in the last five years he stock market is the navel lands but he now has the customer base in europe canada and the united states this is a new product that really talk to people i think and there is this green movement and you can. really think that there will be big business for it. and maybe in the long term also in uganda and africa. global professional cycling is worth billions

of dollars customers hoping to channel some of that to africa through a bumble pipeline. went to a ways a question that's been occupying for loss of us hundreds if not thousands of years . what makes us human one cell that's cropped up again and again is self awareness and now a group of scientists have created a robot they say is capable of displaying what was previously thought of as a uniquely human traits. this is no ordinary robotic arm at least not according to the scientists behind us who say it's acquired the holy grail of artificial intelligence self awareness. how well it's a little complicated the team at columbia university in new york developed a so-called self model to help the robot learn through trial and error much like

a child learning to take its first steps. or first it kind of had no idea what was going on because it had no gather no information about itself or about anything so it moved at first completely ran away with no coherent motion at all and no knowledge about itself at all after it's collected a sufficient amount of information and we've trained its first mission a sufficient amount of time it was able to create a model of itself from the information that it's gathered from all its random motion from all its babble and it was able to produce something that allowed it that was useful in a lot of to do any number of tasks and it's this that sets it apart most robots are designed for one job to be performed under a specific set of conditions and if the circumstances change it's generally impossible for them to adapt to this sets them apart from humans who self-awareness

helps them adopt to an ever changing environment something we take for granted is that we have an image of ourselves inside of us we can imagine ourselves in the future doing things we can see ourselves we can picture ourselves in new situations but that that. that self image that we take for granted. obviously therefore machines while questions may be asked about whether this robotic arm truly does possess a human level of self-awareness the development is likely to reignite the debate about what it means to be a machine. tokyo meeting with japanese prime minister shinzo in a joint press conference both stressed the importance of close straits ties in times of rising protectionism america's this it comes just three days after a sprawling trade pact between the e.u. and japan came into force. good friends are important especially in hard times

that's why german chancellor angela merkel has been emphasizing during her visit to japan a major ally in her call for free trade but their relationship is about more than trade it's been sometimes. i am in japan for the fifth time now but we've met seventeen times already. and we've always worked well together even at international conferences. and we have a long friendship with twenty twenty one marking one hundred sixty years of diplomatic relations for us it's an incentive for us to work even more closely in an ever more disorderly world. for his part a warrant against rising protectionism saying germany and japan the world's number three and four economies respectively had an increasingly important role in protecting multilateralism both countries face similar challenges a rapidly aging population and the need for improved digitalisation germany is

japan's biggest trade partner within the e.u. some four hundred fifty german companies are active in japan and the german chancellor is traveling with a business delegation eager to forge even more deals. and that's it from me on the business team here in berlin for now do stay tuned however the details begin you this up next right here on to be a thanks for watching.

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but this is w.'s life for berlin european powers give a major boost to the opposition and venezuela several leading european countries including germany and spain are recognized kwan quadro as to the legitimate leader of the country but nicolas maduro insists he will never bow to pressure from outside also coming.