it was supposed to be europe's champion in the rail industry but it was just too big for european authorities european commission vetoes the merger between germany engineering giant siemens and france is all stuff citing serious competition concerns. and the french farmer continues an almost decade long quest against former u.s. agricultural giant monsanto whose we kill it he blames for his illness. i'm stephen beardsley relent thanks for joining us it was supposed to herald a global leader in mobility a merger france is also with the rail division of german industrial firm siemens was announced well over a year ago and how does europe's answer to fierce competition from china now all a dream of the e.u. commission today prohibiting the merger on grounds that it would harm competition within the block take a look. our investigation showed that the merger would significantly reduce

competition in several signalling markets and for very high speed trains. the merged company wouldn't become by far the lowest paying europe and in some signaling markets there would be no competition that. these two companies had planned to share a single track on the left is the i.c.e. from zeman and on the right the french t.g.v. train from i'll stop the german and french corporations as well as their government are on board with the merger together they want to stand up to the chinese industry leader and that c r r c with an estimated annual turnover of twenty four billion euros togethers evens and house them would have achieved just over half that figure the canadian train manufacturer bum body is lagging far behind siemens and alstom warned of the overwhelming chinese competitor c r r c but in vain. the state controlled supply of trains in china c r c has more than ninety percent of its

activities incites china it has less success outside its no markets for. the stockers bottom line it's a no from brussels to both france and germany. opec is said to be seeking a formal partnership with russia and its oil exporting allies the deal would transform the cartel formed of saudi arabia in its persian gulf neighbors the wall street journal reports they're seeking an alliance with ten countries led by moscow including former soviet states and mexico their ability to put a floor on oil prices could challenge president trump's goal of lowering fuel prices for u.s. consumers. american car maker g.m. and the twenty eight thousand in the black with north american sales more than offsetting a late fall off in the chinese market and the detroit based firm posted an eight point one billion dollars profit for the year

a huge improvement from its twenty seven thousand loss of three point nine billion dollars due to a new tax on us the chinese sales fell by twenty five percent the fourth quarter g.m. has found success in its home market with s.u.v.s and crossovers. and let's go now to our financial correspondent new york ends korda yens g g m seems to be doing pretty well there so my does again why it's closing car factories in the us. then a while ago general motors announced that there were layoffs around fourteen thousand workers very much to the disliking of for us president donald trump oh well i mean for once most of the layoffs will take place in the unit that produces a small of the gold so those are just not very popular in the united states and g.m. does face some cost pressures for instance due to the higher tariffs on steel and aluminum here in the united states and what g.m.

did in the past couple of months is they could achieve higher selling price especially for their pickup trucks and s.u.v.s we've seen record prices there and consumers obviously a went along with those higher prices all about big vehicles in the us how concerning is that falloff in china. and we saw a drop of about twenty five percent of sales in china where we see basically two factors for one in twenty eighteen for the first time in over twenty years of car sales overall have dropped in china so the market there cooling quite a bit and then old saw us car manufacturers in general not just g.m. losing market share in the chinese market partly because chinese car manufacturers are getting more competitive but basically the numbers came in better as expected

the stock of g.m. traded to the upside by a good one and a half percent and since the beginning of the year the stock is up by a good eighteen percent. there force in new york with the numbers thank you. saying in the u.s. world bank critic david malpass has been nominated by u.s. president donald trump to lead that very institution the decision is likely to spark concern among fellow members of the international lender which is controlled by the world's wealthiest nations one of its biggest borrowers is china which is embroiled in a trade dispute with the trump administration the u.s. is the biggest shareholder in the world bank and has always picked its president. worse than expected performance by germany's manufacturing sector has added to worries about growth in europe's biggest economy the latest figures show factory orders were down one point six percent december compared to the month before economists had been expecting an increase of point three percent growth has been

hit by car makers struggles with tougher emissions to us as well as falling demand from outside the euro zone. saying in europe a french farmer has launched his last ditch effort to hold months until responsible for an illness that he says was called caused by a weak killer made by the firm this after his previous victory over the company was overturned by france's top court german for pharmaceutical giant buyer which bought monsanto last year has not commented on the specifics of the case the outcome of the appeal on wednesday is due to be revealed at a later date french farmer pulled fourth wife if he suffered memory loss and headaches after accidentally inhaling fumes my weak killer made by month on toe the company was initially found to be liable for the intoxication. but france's top court subsequently overruled that decision now the farmer is launching an appeal. to service up with monsanto knew of the dangerous how could it have been otherwise

let me give you just one example this product was prohibited in canada in the mid one nine hundred eighty s. because of its dangerous while monsanto couldn't ignore that decision or ignore that the product was dangerous it knowingly kept on selling us. the wheat killer in question is known commercially by the name of lasso and is commonly used on corn and soybean crops it contains high levels of the toxic chemical monna coral benzene the product was banned in france in two thousand and seven. one thousand times lawyers say the farmer has fabricated the details of his condition and that there is no link between the wheat killer and the symptoms for swat describes. he doesn't suffer from any demonstration disorder judicial experts have stated clearly that he wasn't suffering from anything behind value seat which they couldn't assess and which has nothing to do with all the pathology to use paul francois invokes. this is far from monsanto's only court battle it's also facing lawsuits in the united

states in relation to other glaive based weak killers cases of this kind are likely to prove a headache for a german pharmaceutical giant buyer which acquired monsanto for sixty three billion dollars back in june unsurprisingly perhaps one of its first decisions was to drop the monsanto name. and that's certainly not the only issue buyers grappling with the company has also revealed that farmers in germany and france are digging up thousands of have tears of rapeseed fields after traces of banned genetically modified or g.m. seeds were found in them crops are widely grown across the world but they remain controversial in europe where only a few varieties are allowed the banned seed in question was sold under the decaff name previously on songs of bran. children aged fourteen and below represent twenty five percent of the world's population according to the un but in many parts of the world children are disproportionately affected by poverty

a joint report by unicef and the un's labor standards agency i l o shows that two out of three children have no access to social protection. millions of children are forced to work every day in many countries often their parents have no other option children have to supplement the family income so that there's enough food on the table. for so many kids poverty is what is preventing them from going to school from having how from having nutrition and what it shows is if you provide cash transfers to these children you see really significant improvements in their health and education which changes their future life course and the future life chances and of course also has really big impacts on society today half of the children who live in extreme poverty are in sub-saharan africa and the problem could get worse for the region which could house ninety percent of children living in extreme poverty by the end of the next decade according to the u.n. it says governments need to increase cash transfer programs put children. now

boosting tourism can be a challenge in any country but in uganda the government's latest strategy to attract visitors has triggered quite a controversy what's all the fuss about well take a look at this here's uganda's tourism it's a minister godfrey who won the launching a beauty pageant called miss curvy uganda among the winners duties using their curves to promote tourism in the country and surprisingly the idea hasn't gone too well gone down too well in many quarters they're responding to the campaign ugandan journalist fake a college we did this is not how we promote tourism in this country human beings are not tourist attractions and urge people to sign a petition demanding that the ugandan government cancel the competition if you've got a women's network also weighed in saying women are not a tourist attraction they're not an object for pleasure so the campaign certainly has people talking but possibly not for the right reasons. and that's it for me and

the business team here in berlin don't forget you can always go to our website for more on these and other stories dot com slash business i'm stephen birds are left thanks watching.

them. for information. they want to express. on facebook and twitter up to date and in touch. once upon a time there was a young girl. with a burning ambition. to become a conductor. i was a very curious child and very excited and in love with music and i would go to concerts with my parents and i always. hear and for being on stage of the musicians and being part of that magic it wasn't difficult from the first girl so she was told to jump because conductors but this girl had other ideas and one day she really did become

a world famous conductor longer than about thanks thanks thanks. to. start the jewelry a takes on t.w. . the digital revolution is already in full swing here in the fields of northern germany at the moment transmits data from the asparagus crop. is that still sending out signal.