freedom of russia. and featuring a lead role like you've never seen before. the plan here for marriage to the ends justify the means. bruton's witnesses starts december 13th on g.w. . from russia with mixed feelings why some german companies are increasingly wary about doing business there are those others yesterday also on the show the north stream to pipeline from russia to germany to me as completion will this make the whole of europe too dependent on put his gas supplies and his goodwill. and the cuban turns in crisis now the communist authorities once a bounded transit system and ordinary cubans are not happy about.

this is d w business i'm gallup has a berlin welcome. germany germany's investment in russia hit its highest level in a decade last year however a new survey of german companies suggests something of a lottery when it comes to operating in the country a 3rd of the funds say the business climate in russia has worsened over the past year but around the same proportion say things have improved he complains i says if iraq or syria and the weak economy russia's economic growth of 1.7 percent in the 3rd quarter of this year is below what's needed to meet president putin's target of expanding faster than the global average by 2025. i know joined by but he has said he's with a german russian chambre of commas in moscow. what he has how is business in russia

in generally very good. g.d.p. is slow we expect only one percent growth until the end of the year but our companies manage to grow faster and even much faster than the market so the turnaround is growing and also the profit in general. you do see this also with the high investment number last year in 18 it was 3200000000 which is the highest number for 10 years if you compare the inflow and outflow of german capital into russia and it was the 2nd biggest number since the soviet union fell apart but if you look at your. survey that you have done there's a bit of a discrepancy one 3rd of german businesses says business is great and another 3rd says it hasn't improved at all or did it it's not good does it depend on the sector why is there such a disparity we also have this there's parity as you name it in the policy

concerning economics of the russian government on the one hand. we do see a clear improvement of business climate if you take the doing business service by the world bank in 2011 russia of us ranking place 124 between gun were acquired i know they are place 27 so part of the company's y.p. if they do see this other companies they see that we have again an increase in europe kristie and they see things like the biggest u.s. investor mr kelly being arrested and on the house arrest this was a man who was running around and saying hey russia is a great place to invest come here and then. spend a couple of months in jail and i was in 100 house arrest so how did russia manage to climb up from 120 something in into the top 30 in 10 years less than 10 years

you can register your business extremely quick russia is now on the. top 10 worldwide they do have some improvement in difficult areas like customs where they are still lagging behind so point for point they were working on this difficult matters very briefly corruption still a problem yes as simple as that thank you very much much he said from the german russian chapter of commerce in moscow. and we stay on the subject of russia they know it's trying to pipeline designed to bring gas from russia to germany is nearing completion the project has more than a few critics the european commission the usa poland and the baltic states all opposing the project some fear that the e.u. will become too dependent on russian natural gas and others feel they are just pawns in russia's pog games. new meaning in the german state of metal in burke for

parma this is where the 1200 kilometer long nord stream to pipeline reaches the german baltic sea coast soon natural gas from russia will be flowing towards western europe streaming to circumvent ukraine gas market expert says there's a very clear reason for building the pipeline. it was like naturally the russian side always insists that nord stream too wasn't built to bypass ukraine like north stream one but i believe that's exactly why dr fool and special ships they pipeline sections just a few kilometers off the german baltic sea coast resistance is coming from the us they are planning sanctions possibly to include those operating the vessels instead of natural gas from russia the usa wants to sell its liquid gas. there's also opposition to the pipeline in poland it's anti trust authority has levied

a $20000000.00 fine under its string to use financing company reportedly because the proper documents were and submit it in my opinion you cannot be stopped because it's so. it's. developing into a way to actually make it possible to put a halt now however there is a chance to take the profit that ability over to project down and to. well to operate nose into heart or the north stream to pipeline could also be used to transport hydrogen instead of natural gas experts like no months a climate killing greenhouse gases can be avoided that way. when you know. you know i'm supposed to use natural gas long term and i'm supposed to split hydrogen and carbon dioxide the russians are working on a process for making solid carbon so there won't even be a need for carbon dioxide storage and i know. that means large volumes

of liquid hydrogen could be transported by nord stream to replace in climate damaging natural gas it's only a dream of the future but climate change is accelerating the process. french economy minister. says a u.s. proposal to increase duties on french products in response to attacks on giants technology fronts in france is unacceptable is demanding a unified european response from the european commission if the tires take effect washington had said it could slap additional duties on up to 100 percent on nearly 2 and a half $1000000000.00 worth of french imports like champagne and cheese tires would be a reprisal for a new french digital services tax on companies like google facebook or amazon. check in with our financial correspondents chose to do any event for. france is not the only you country with plans for

a digital tax other countries also face similar tariffs. well for instance really been the leader of this effort and after talks is so i think that it makes sense for them to be the 1st to come under scrutiny from the u.s. that there are several other countries that are pursuing taxes. the u.s. administration mentioned yesterday austria italy and turkey as other countries that could also face tariff the routes that there are about a half dozen at least other countries that are looking into digital taxes so there could definitely be more countries hit here they're also still really pushing for an international agreement on that so there is hope that. which has really been trying to get together and additional talks at the international level would be able to to to be successful in that and out they will be able to avoid these tariffs before that happens. these towers were not the only ones.

just in brazil in argentina his deal how concerned are investors about another escalations trade tensions. we saw a pretty dramatic soften and markets yesterday the dow is down almost 300 points the dax is down about 2 percent markets have been a little warm mixed today but i think this is definitely going to be a concern going forward there's been so much focus on the u.s. china trade fight which is still ongoing they're supposed to hopefully reach a deal this month but there's about $150000000000.00 in tariffs hanging on that decision so this really adds another element and it could certainly sort of do you rail the rally we've seen in global markets over the past couple of months so it's a dilemma you think you. cuba is in crisis because it's socialist island closed trading as well as the economy was also struggling

with. economy one problem is this. see the company valued because it is not traded on the market conditions so. 2 currencies for more than 2 decades. regular and once the tourists convertible. obama wants to end this. it's a tale of 2 currencies for the last 25 years goods in cuba have come with $2.00 price tags the paizo and the convertible paid so also known as the cook. locals generally use the former while tourists pay in the convertible here's the difference in value $24.00 pays those gets you one convertible paid so which the central bank says it's worth one us dollar but over the past few

years questions have been raised about that assertion. that's mainly because of how important goods are priced items originally purchased in foreign money often have huge markups reflecting the reality that the pay though has no value abroad this leaves locals either having to fork a more pay those or join tourists in using the more valuable cook now in an experiment approved by the central bank to have an it department stores are scrapping the jewel currency system and only giving change in regular pesos. this is a view that if you give over regular pesos you should get the same currency back sometimes when i get a convertible cooks i end up losing out on. the experiment which aims to address that problem comes as cuba grapples with 2 major challenges the 1st is that one of its few trading partners venezuela is an economic turmoil the 2nd is that the

united states under donald trump has been tightening existing economic restrictions including on tourism having only one domestic currency is seen as a key step towards fostering economic stability. and that's all from me in the business team him business news of peaches in the background check out our website to w dot com slash business also follow us on facebook vent was if you don't. stay tuned to b. w. there's a quick update on the global markets at this hour. what

secrets lie behind. discover new adventures in 360 degree. and explore fascinating world heritage sites. world heritage 360 getting out now. i was fishing when i arrived here i slept with 6 people in a room. it was hard i was fair. even got white hairs that.

language and now a lot of this gets me and they go. to in truck loads of say you want to know their story. it's the fighting and reliable information for migrants. to come. hello welcome to news from the world of arts and culture multi-talented south african artist robin road is my guest in just a minute also coming up today. a story of love wolf family tragedy and much more in 1930 source for the vienna melody by and slow time is one of on $100.00 german must reads. the endless founding of the sea against the coastline is what fascinates british photographer rachel tell about

. roman road is a south african artist based in berlin he uses many visual languages from painting to street art photography to film live improvised performances sculpture and installations anything goes and his canvases range from wolves in the rough parts of his hometown johannesburg so wools in major museums around the world hippy by guest in just a minute 1st more about him and his alt. robin road grew up in apartheid era south africa and made a name for himself with st he moved to berlin 17 years ago and is now well established on the global contemporary art scene as an artist in south africa's young democracy road to press the country's new possibilities the hopes and the feel the buildings in johannesburg where his canvases.