there was supposed to be europe's champion in the rail industry but it was just too big for european authorities the european commission vetoes the merger between german 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 wheat killer he blames for his illness. i'm stephen beardsley relent thanks for joining us it was supposed to herald a global leader in mobility the merger of france's all star with the rail division of german industrial firms e m a s 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 at our investigation showed that the merger would significantly reduced competition in several signaling markets and for very high speed trains the marriage company wouldn't become by far the largest player in europe and in some sickening 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 siemens and on the right the french t.g.v. train from. 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 vance c r r c with an estimated annual turnover of twenty four billion euros togethers evens and oust them would have achieved just over half that figure the canadian train manufacturer bum body is lacking far behind. siemens and house stone 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 insight china it has less success outside its how markets are. apt to 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. in 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 a twenty seven thousand loss of three point nine billion dollars due to a new tax law u.s. and 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 ians korda yes just g.m. seems to be doing pretty well their surmises again why it's closing car factories in the u.s. . yeah and 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 well i mean for once most of the layoffs will take place in the unit that produces smaller vehicles 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 went along with those higher prices all about big vehicles in the u.s. and 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 car sales overall have dropped in china so the market they're cooling quite a bit and then also u.s. 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. their force in new york with the numbers thank you yes. 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 on to responsible for an illness that he says was called caused by a weak killer made by the firm this after his previous victory of 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 friends farmer pulled swan twice if he suffered memory loss and headaches after accidentally inhaling fumes smoke weed killer made by month ontario 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 ignored that the product was dangerous it knowingly kept on selling us. the weed 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 mana coral benzene the product was banned in france in two thousand and seven. monsanto's lawyers say the farmer has fabricated the details of his condition and that there is no link between the weed 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 which they couldn't assess and which has nothing to

do with all the pathology he's invokes. this is far from monsanto's only court battle it's also facing lawsuits in the united states in relation to other glyphosate 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 hectares of rapeseed fields after traces of banned genetically modified or g.m. seeds were found in the g.m. 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. 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 aiello 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 the 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 so what's all the fuss about well take a look at this here's uganda's tourism it's a minister god freak 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 there responding to the campaign ugandan journalist fake tweeted 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 go on the 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 plus business i'm stephen there's a thanks watching.

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