this is the w. news live from berlin and munich's october fast is off to germany cancels its world famous beer festival it is the latest latest casualty of the coronavirus princes the very end state leaders say it is just too risky. also coming out traders say they've never seen anything like it for the 1st time in history u.s. oil prices plunged into negative territory as a coronavirus constant demand for crude to clocks.

i'm sorry so misconduct it's good to have you with us the southern german state of bavaria has canceled the october fest beer festival because of the coronavirus the event attracts more than $6000000.00 visitors every year and authorities fear that allowing it to go ahead would lead to a spike in infections as we report the move is likely to take both the financial and emotional toll. no crowded party tents giant mugs of beer or packed out parades. germany's biggest festival has been cancelled for the 1st time since world war 2. large events are currently banned in germany until the end of august october 1st was supposed to start on september 19th but officials say the risk of infection during the coronavirus pandemic is just too high 2. which is

painful for us it's a great pity because with many things this is not a normal year and this is sadly going to be a year without the 1st. about $6000000.00 visitors flock to the october fest every year crowding the festival grounds but also the host city munich the cancellation of the event is not only said news for the city it also means big financial losses. slow version of between 2 and 1300000000 euros of lost profits in those 16 days. that affects hotels restaurants talk to drivers. everyone will miss the october 1st terribly well it's well true. i see you say so and so begins the countdown until 2021 with the next october fest will hopefully

take place. let's speak to correspondent standing by for us in munich. at the mayor of munich i said this is an emotionally difficult moment to cancel the october fest why is it so emotional. well absolutely it is because you have to understand that for the city of munich and for the people who live here is much more than just another huge party it's got a really long tradition it's been around for more than 200 years and it's something that's deeply ingrained into the d.n.a. of this city and on top of that it's also shaped the image of not only munich and the very a but also to a certain degree all of germany really all around the world if you ask anyone anywhere what they associate with germany one of the 1st answers that you always get is going to be the total size so it's usually popular around the world in the city and the people here in the city of munich they're proud of that they're proud of the fact that their city is home to such a famous and popular festival and course now they're sad that this year all those

visitors from around the world can't can't come here can't take it take can take part in a cover fest and that this huge festival is not going to happen what about the economic impact of all of this i mean this is a multimillion your own business isn't it. absolutely as we heard in the report it's one between $2.13 euros total says generates every year and that's not only for the businesses that are directly at the hotel with us all the beer halls breweries and the rides and everything that you always see when you see their turf as it's the whole hospitality sector as we heard the report around $1000000.00 people spend the night in munich during the october fest nets for a city that only has around one and a half 1000000 people in the population so you can you can already tell that that's a huge factor for a lot of businesses here in the hospitality sector and that of course is a sector that's already heavily affected by the problem virus this year so the cancellation of the a total fest for them is just really another blow to the guts to me it was

a big blow but given the current situation with the pandemic in germany also internationally does it really come as a surprise that october for sas has been canceled. no i don't think so i mean a lot of people expected is there's really no way to go forward with this we heard in the report like all the big events in germany are canceled until the end of august and other big events around the world like the olympics that are also canceled so that you really can't go ahead with an event like this where there's millions of people from around the world coming together party together being close to each other you can't really social distance yourself at all during it so it has force and that's not the point of the festival so then people get infected they go home to their home countries and then maybe spark more outbreaks in the last thing that the authorities here in the city of munich want to be associated with is another wave in this pandemic will be the cause for another wave of this pandemic so that the only responsible decision to really make here is to cancel the it's over fest as hard as it is but

a lot of people on twitter for example are already saying ok we're looking forward to the next october fest in 2021. correspondent asked him how take speaking to us from new nick good to talk to you. let's check in on some other coronavirus news the global death toll stands at more than 171000 according to johns hopkins university in the u.s. of the world health organization has warned that rushing to ease restrictions will increase the risk of a resurgence of the disease nevertheless italy says that before the end of this week it will outline plans for the gradual loosening of lockdown measures starting on the 4th of may and the world's most populous muslim nation indonesia has banned people from traveling home to celebrate the holy month of ramadan later this week. now let's take a look at some other stories making headlines around the world u.s. president donald trump says he will temporarily suspend all immigration by signing an executive order he said the action was in response to the corona virus outbreak

and to protect jobs more than 22 a ww americans have applied for unemployment benefits in the past month because of pandemic lockdowns just south korea has denied media reports that north korean leader kim jong un is gravely ill after heart surgery so said it had seen no signs indicating the 36 year old was in serious condition speculation emerged after kim missed a key state celebration last week. 36 people have died in floods in eastern congo authorities say some 75000 people are homeless after heavy rain storms triggered flash floods and landslides roads and bridges across the affected region also suffered severe damage israeli prime minister israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu has agreed to form an emergency unity government with his political rival many guns following pretty much inconclusive elections protests were held over the weekend against netanyahu he faces trial on 3 corruption charges but he denies any

wrong doing. the benchmark price of crude oil has fallen to its lowest level since 2001 at around $20.00 a barrel it comes alongside problems on the u.s. oil market where the cost of american crude fell into negative territory for the 1st time on monday oil prices are tumbling as shutdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic drive down demand well discuss the impact in just a moment but 1st this report when its planes aren't flying and it's roads are all but. the u.s. can at least lay claim to one thing we certainly have plenty of oil in fact far too much of it the president tried to calm nerves after the value of u.s. crude went negative for the 1st time ever on monday at one point reaching minus $40.00 a barrel in a month to go a little bit it's a $25.00 and $28.00 or so it's largely

a financial squeeze and they did get squeezed the day traders who found themselves on monday under heavy pressure to sell off their creamed futures in the rising cost of holding the oil in the u.s. is dwindling storage facilities means keeping it is becoming too expensive. there's so little space for it left the u.s. government is planning to fill up its own reserves. i think we have 75000000000 gallons right now capacity that's a lot it's we've been building it up over a period but that's a 75000000000 barrels. so we're going to get either ask for permission to buy it or we'll store it one way or the other it will be for the what is most needed is a return in demand brought by restart to the u.s. economy then they owe that continues to be pumped as unbroken pace can actually have enough places to go. all right that report from rob watts from the business

he's with us now for more hi rob what exactly do negative prices mean year yeah it's a slightly mad concept so imagine after the program we go to the shop we decided to get us off the snap and we go to the shopkeeper we say you know how much is this chocolate bar and he says oh that's minus one your hair we could be throw it is what it means is he's going to give us a chocolate bar or he's also going to do is he's going to give us a euro for doing the favor of taking that chocolate bar off his hands and freeing up the space in his shop sensually what happened yesterday with us oil prices since the start of the corona virus outbreak people have been flying they have been driving factories have been running at the same capacity that they normally would all of that needs oil less oil is being used but production continues at a similar pace to a day before the coronavirus outbreak and what that's meant is that oil producers have got this gloat of oil that they just can't shift and the amount of space left

to put that oil in the united states is getting ever smaller and ever more expensive so they've reached the point where actually they can have to pay for people to take that oil off and so the conclusion you draw from that is just stop producing so why don't they well the we've had a lot of talk about global production reductions over the past few weeks i mean last week we did hear from opec in some of their allies that they were going to be cutting oil production by $10000000.00 a day that's a huge amount when you very much that's 10 percent of the overall output worldwide . but that hasn't happened yet and it doesn't look like it's going to be enough to sort the problem in the united states produces there are not wanting to reduce their own output because they for a start they don't want to lose their market share by doing that i want to get that competitors a leg up by doing that but also there are costs associated with closing facilities and then reopening them down. the line so production hasn't been cut to match

because into mountains so what does all of this mean for consumers we haven't reached the point yet where you and i think go into a petrol station for example and demand the petrol and some money in exchange for it but in the us we have seen or prices dropping since the start of the year petrol prices have dropped by $2.00 thirds since the start of the consumers that are all seeing a real difference there around the world oil prices have also been falling this is west texas intermediate oil that drops into the negative yesterday most of the world uses brant crude which might be a bit more familiar to most people as the sort of gauge of how much that oil should be worth and therefore how much they should be paying for petrol the scion that we get the signal we get from what happened with west texas is that oil prices are going down so that this pacific development may not affect petrol prices in the rest of the world it does show where they're going to be going which is down it's very interesting rob watson did of the business thank you so much now the z.e.w.

economic research institute says there's been a surprising jump in german investor confidence despite the pen to make bringing the economy to a standstill and let's go right to date abuse shall see delaney our financial correspondent in a frankfurt shell see can you explain this to us why are investors showing confidence despite the pen demick. well i would read this data with a little bit of caution there are 2 parts of this survey the 1st is how investors feel about the economy right at this moment so that indicator was deeply negative and march so investors are really concerned about the current state of the economy the 2nd part of this was how do you feel about where the economy is going to be in several months or maybe 6 months from now that's where we saw this surprising bounce back and confidence so investors seem to be taking confidence from these stimulus measures that governments and central banks have put in place over the past few weeks as well as the tentative reopening of the german economy but we are

still seeing a steeper session. so they see a light at the end of the tunnel is what you're saying but are there any clues as to when that might happen. when this report investors think that in maybe the 3rd quarter of this year we'll start seeing a bounce back and the economy that's going to depend of course on how quickly the economy reopens how well the safety net that's been put in place by the government really works but they also see it taking years for the economy to really recover from coronavirus back to pre-credit virus levels all right our financial correspondent in frankfurt show reporting for us thank you very much. this is deja vu news in berlin a reminder that you can always get news and features around the clock on our website we are calm out with our app but also on twitter at news thank you for watching we'll be right back at the top of the hour.

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