interesting. welcome to the activist asia i'm going to get johnsonville in the to have you with us and we're starting with an incredible success story and the end of an era 20 years ago he was an english teacher today he is one of the world's richest men and arguably china's most famous entrepreneur. co-founder jack ma now he's stepping down from his role as chairman of the e-commerce behemoths 20 years ago jack ma founded the alibaba group in his apartment in hung joe 15 years after that in 2014 alibaba with an e-commerce giant making its debut on wall street and it was the largest i.p.o. in history at the time ma is china's most famous entrepreneur and his influence has been felt beyond the tech world he has met with several world leaders including the last 2 u.s. presidents barack obama and don't try. and we had a great meeting and

a great great entrepreneur one of the best in the world and he loves this country and he loves china you can kind of. that was early 2017 and things couldn't have been more different by the end of last year the time when trade tensions between the u.s. and china where escalating trade war is the most a stupid a thing in this world trade is to force the peace trade is to communicate there will be no trade deficit. issue in the next 20 years because of technology feeds the answers to some of the world's biggest problems in technology and while he may be stepping down from his role as chairman he still wants to make a difference he says he'll spend more time building his philanthropic foundation put education. if it could and joins me in the studio now jack ma a success story business story in

a communist country where most of the companies a state run i was the possible well i think last year we saw a situation where he said that he was a communist party member and he never denied it but for me he was always this is true obviously but he always personified dare i say american idea of a tycoon in a way you know he started out as his english teacher couldn't get a job at k.f.c. and then built his way up to make this incredible empire that is ali baba today so he's really a classic tycoon in that sense a classic entrepreneur in the sense that we know from the from the american model because of the rags to riches story there in china. was at the beijing just turned a blind eye to it or whether supportive i think that he came up at a time when china needed champions when the chinese economy was growing and growing but it needed something that would really symbolize this growth that would really appear to my eyes this growth i think along with other tycoons of the last 15 years

or 20 years or so we really. embodied this so he had he had all the characteristics of a chinese tycoon but at the same time he was a global player he turned into a global brand and he took advantage of the huge economies that you have a 1400000000 people on creation this incredible incredible model how did he and his incredible model impact chinese business landscape i think he completely revolutionized when you go to the airports in china the shelves are full. how to guides how. he's he's massively popular he's a role model he's also because of his type she's cool is that he's now going to retire and he's going to focus on these every everything he touches is hugely influential in china and i think he embodies this whole notion that you can really succeed china's gone into 40 years. of reform he's really you know he's the poster boy for this event way so now that he stepped down we said it mentioned mentioned 7

times it's the end of an era will we see more like him well this is one thing you know i can't think of any other names that are coming up we've seen a lot of concentration around xi jinping in the last while in turn on a lot more sort of pure communist focus and i think the days of maybe we're going to see if i can i don't know wait and see but i can't think of any names off and cliff akun in there i do w. china analyst and also business expert thank you so much for bega. and now to some of the other business stories making news. are and still hogan is the new e.u. trade commissioner with post-breakfast talks with britain high on his agenda the e.u.'s efforts to agree a withdrawal agreement with britain which is due to leave the block next month a stalled over how to handle the border between ireland and northern ireland. prosecutors across the united states have launched

a wide ranging antitrust investigation into google the aim is to determine whether the tech giants control of online and search traffic has resulted in anti-competitive behavior it's thought that other issues such as data privacy may also come under scrutiny. by fox has unveiled its 1st all electric compact car at the frankfurt motor show opens the new model known as i d 3 is the highest profile response from germany to strict new european carbon emission limits and a battery powered competition from the u.s. and china. so while most of us have them in our wardrobes it's made in bangladesh blouses made in india that nice comfy and mostly affordable pieces of clothing but all that comes at a price on next report takes us to india where polluted rivers show us one of the darkest sides of the global textile industry if you don't win there could we go

back up we've been growing melons here for years but this 35 kilometer stretch along the river is a barren rubbish you have one of these men are angry they say an environmental catastrophe is underway on the other side of this river for decades farmers in the indian state of raja stan have been struggling to survive on the banks of the bondi river. it's almost dried up now their remaining water is a bluish black and it stinks. somebody asked the water causes skin diseases risperidone problems even cancer 60 families in my village are affected a 40 of them with cancer the whole region has a high incidence of the disease. the nearby town of harley is an indian textile industry hub with $600.00 died works pallies fabrics are sold worldwide. the dying process consumes hundreds of thousands of liters of water every day the

waste water here does get treated burst seemingly not well enough before it flows into the bandy. legs of a short is an environmental activist who has taken state authorities to course over the pollution caused by dying he says the environmental damage is significant. one to some but it got to the center for science near hiram and has been studying the river water forests the lab tests found pollutants such as arsenic zinc lead nickel we have passed this information on to people to the supreme court as well nothing's happened. it took a 2nd lawsuit to finally force the dye companies to close for 11 months and modernize their sewage plants management says the pollutants are being removed. bigger lucia family firm has improved its production methods since the german and scandinavian markets in particular began demanding higher ecological standards.

pollution no longer uses talk to chemical plant has built its own wastewater treatment plant but its 2 owners say europe is equally responsible for india's environmental problems. that the countries have discouraged such industries in their own country and their. very started to sing. these products from the developing countries so this shifted the burden of pollution on the revenue base but this was really of the end that humanity the children of these farmers are now looking for work in the cities because as long as the river and groundwater remain pollution there won't be any jobs for them here in the countryside. for more on this issue i'm joined by. the development spokesman for the green party here in germany good to have you with us and you were so in this report we just heard that europe is equally responsible for india's environmental problems what is

germany doing about that well we have a lot of discussion about the situation and i agree that germany could do much more as europe as a whole could do much more we are talking a lot about higher standards ecological and economical or social standards human rights standards but our government has one weakness they think our government thinks that the responsibility lies with the computer consumers and they should just buy fair trade course and i think this is not what politicians are for or decision to do you suggest i suggest what we also suggest our government should take over responsibility and find binding rules for souls import of those clothes and this would make a huge difference was the brands have a huge challenge to change the situation well of course we've we've seen already some initiatives only one the so-called green button initiative was launched only

yesterday it's a labeling system that should inform consumers about the products they buy if that's already in the right direction you think well it is it does not do any harm that's right we have already certain to 40 labels and we do not need to sort of 1st label in this relation it doesn't really improve the situation in bangladesh or india it's for consumers maybe an information system but it does not have the situation in india because big names take pot even though it's voluntarily yeah but a little bit afraid it could turn out to be green washing for them you know we need really binding rules and why do those big firms refuse to take over responsibility and they and. there are many companies or it is they we need binding rules because those companies take over responsibility and many don't and this does. competition here in our market our rights of binding rules would actually be

helpful also if the big companies but isn't there's also a problem that if you outsource business which is what's happened with a lot of these companies you're no longer obliged to adhere to rules that are made here in germany no it would be german rules so they would be a trading to the rules and there would be compulsory for the rules for the companies to import only products that are produced under social and because project conditions we set so binding rules is the solutions as we kick out the development spokesman for the green party thank you so much and you. and that's your business update here and thanks for watching. the.

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to come needed urgent assistance of. the family starts october. d.w. the phone. the bag. the bag played. as a state of the year's live from thailand donald trump has fired john bolton as u.s. national security adviser to president trump said he has strongly disagreed. with mr bolton's position on major foreign policy issues so does this latest in a long line of white house dismissals signal a change of direction the truck administrator also on the program incoming commission the president sets climate protection as

a top priority for her new. found a lock on fountain of proposed agenda balanced commission today.