has been a sticking point ever since the working conditions of could toss migrant workers were exposed as specially under the spotlight of wood cup preparations one agency that has been working closely with qatar on reforming it system is the united nations international labor organization. in such europe today it's more news of the top of the hour.

after the fall of the berlin wall some are not. welcome bricks a deal say the e.u. and to britain but having been there before business on both sides of the channel cautious and keep stockpiling goods just in case also coming up nanotechnology block and cloud computing sierra leone is banking on the most advanced technology to leapfrog out of poverty and the population shrink all over the world it's a big problem also in rwanda it's honey business declines as bees die off.

but come to do business africa. be with us the british pound surged to a 5 month high today on news that negotiators from britain and the european union struck a new brics it's divorce steel sterling temporarily rows of. $1.29 on her britain's exit from the e.u. will be in an orderly manner but the currency remains volatile and some hurdles still remain the deal still has to be confirmed by the british parliament the u.k. is due to leave the e.u. on october 31st for more i'm joined by. senior economist at hermes investment management in london we've been there before we've had a withdrawal agreement on the table is this deal better than the previous one well actually it's really just a variation of the deal that the resume reached a few months ago the main difference really concerns the backstop for on an island

and the related customs agreements or arrangements in bars johnson's trade deal the u.k. would leave the european union go some soon on northern ireland still be subject to the rules and procedures in terms of starry face of the european union customs union this is very good news for the president city years because it allows for more divergence between the u.k. and the european union in the future but it's bad news for the democratic unionist party the u.p.a. . which holds prime seats in the u.k. parliament because it means that the northern ireland would effectively end up outside of the u.k. which means in turn that it's a very close call where the u.k. parliament will approve this deal or not so there are hurdles in the way what happens if this deal is also not approved by parliament what does this mean for the

british economy. well it just means more uncertainty really and certainly has been significant issues for business investment and growth investment actually contracted last year. and that also has negative consequences for both of the growth down the line i think the most likely scenario if the deal does not pass is like an extension of article $58.00 negotiations and early elections in the u.k. and as i said that would imply more uncertainty. about sylvia launch a low their senior economist in terms investment management in london thank you so much for your time. now the ongoing bricks of uncertainty is putting a lot of businesses under pressure a french confectioner is struggling to meet demand in the u.k.'s shops and there are stockpiling sweets for christmas just in case. the workers at french

confection is cousy are working extra hard this autumn they're packing up box after box of sweet treats to send to pretty sri taylor's king to avoid the christmas crisis. you need to turn it on and this year is exceptional in that some about british clients self want to have their orders delivered before the famous october 31st breaks it deadline which is increased activity even more during the period from september to october until they are typical morkel. the fare for the company's british clients such as london's famous for the mason department store is that the u.k. could leave the e.u. at the end of october without a deal throwing customs arrangements up in the air with boris johnson facing an uphill struggle to get the agreement struck on thursday through britain's parliament that threat remains on the table. in story law and on what that

historically britain has to be years in years been our number one x. or market and it's also the market which probably has the best potential in the future but given this uncertain situation we have to sided not to make britain. 2019 or 2020 you know people don't need to develop this work on what. some research suggests a 5th of british firms have been importing christmas stocker early. their concerns could yet prove unfounded with an agreement one thought impossible now reached but with boris johnson's promise to shake the u.k. free of the e.u. by the end of october whether a deal is passed or not the 2 sides are cutting it rather fine. now that information and communication technology in africa is suffering from a lack of investment that's according to the african development bank the bank

estimates just 2 and a half percent of infrastructure disinvest women in africa go to information and communication technology but sierra leone is breaking the mold and working towards being a smart country the government claims that blocks chain and cloud computing allow sierra leone to push texas terms and make essential services affordable the country's efforts are being helped by a team of trained at estonia's governance cademy now estonia of course being the smart city of europe so what's. bishan there for more let's cross over now to our africa desk in bonn to abu bakar giallo good to have you with us tell me sierra leone has big ambitions to become a leader in advanced technology was this ambition coming from if you actually coming from the president himself julius mother be your right from the beginning he

had 2 major ambition 1st of all is to use technology and transform the economy and also to use technology and developing human capital and of course that does come from the fact that he admires the stronger you admire the successes of qantas like rwanda so he's basically putting together this thing based on these 2 examples from in rwanda but of course it's also ambitious because all of this will cost money how is it going to be financed. oh yeah it's a very expensive process but so far we've seen that the president is getting support from development agencies including the united nations development program and we also want to universities a whole 2 step to india mit for instance year and have a university there providing some of the support base know how to do this people who are working in freetown and carrying out this process are not the same time the government hopes to fight corruption and the proceeds that they get the money that

the same in fighting corruption they want to use the same money in also finance their technological advancement by using the super high tech process in actually even their goals so tell me which sectors are going to benefit if all of that works out the way it should actually we've seen the government use these super high tech solutions for example cloud computing during the outbreak of the bulla but they use it in mobile money transfer to actually pay people who are in the forefront of fighting and the votes to use the block to claim that they've used blocks in the national id system to sort of strengthen and make the whole process secure and they've also used recent the most recent one is d.n.a. sequences are called the mini on which they got from nano bought technologies in oak ford and they use it in other culture and also to fight crime but you know they have they've identified 6 school projects that they want to put this process into 1st of all they have a geographic amount which the project is already online and this map you can

basically select a contract from that map and they selected town or village on that map and got all the information all right but. that's fantastic so a lot of projects already sort of underway there already starting to benefit back a giallo there 2 in bonn that africa desk thank you so much for bringing us up to speed thanks for having me. well the drop in the populations is a huge global problem one of the affected countries is rwanda home to 80000 to beekeepers but fewer and fewer b.s. calls a growing louder for a ban on pesticides that are toxic to the important insects. in this beehive the honey bees are hard at work turning flour nectar into honey which is then collected by beekeepers maybe d.c. is one of rwanda's biggest honey producers they used to process around 70 tons per year and now it's down to 40 tons that's triggered a sharp rise in the price of honey. we've lost many customers because the honey

prices have increased so much what i see is that few people can afford our products of honey is becoming something for rich people it wasn't like this before. it was wanda has more than 80000 beekeepers but fewer and fewer bees experts say they're harmed by the pesticides that are sprayed in the tomato and coffee plantations here . b key persian seebohm and now agrees his experiencing the dying of bees firsthand he used to have 40 hives now he has only half that number he often finds dead bees in the hives or out on the fields and he says his fellow beekeepers are saying the same. i asked the government to stop the sale of these products which kill our babies. they can ban them and do new research and make other products which don't kill o.b.'s. otherwise the next generation will

only see bees in books these products are killing my business and i need to live so please stop using them to live in. rwandan agriculture official seem to recognise the extent of the problem they said the government is switching to natural methods of pest control. after all rwandan honey is good business it's exported to the e.u. the us and china the basic idea that we have all think towards that. kind of creating the same bed to. face this size and using all the bio bio degradable. pesticides because when their bio degradable they don't they live by i don't know and therefore they are not comfortable these these are some of the strategists who are trying to upset a profession that the credit is fine. but not only toxins are to blame vendors at this market say they encounter swarms of the insects in search of food

like a salve a flower they need more nourishment as woods and meadows are destroyed to make way for farms the decline in the bee population is not just bad for the honey business it's a sign of a much wider problem. and that's all for this edition of business africa here on t w please be sure to follow us online and on social media for more from me in the team and the lens thanks for keeping us company.

but i don't need to keep up every little of the world for all the rats and on the 4th and. last missing in the words of others the bottom of the valley the last dragons this word has called the home. to the river on. land will be our fighters want to start families to become farmers or engineers every one of them has a plan mcginnis who are your children. learning is just down the children who have

always been there. and those that will follow are part of a new. they could be the future of. granting opportunities global news that matters to me. this is d.w. news africa coming up in the next 15 minutes displaced and distressed we have an exclusive report from moscow with plenty of birds men who played ethnic violence now live on the landfill. at award winning environmentalist who's fighting against illegal logging in uganda has to soak up artist despite threats to his life.