this is g.w. news live from berlin munich's october past is off germany cancels its world famous beer festival it is the latest casualty of the coronavirus crisis the varian 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 the glow in a virus causes demand for crude to collapse. just speculation for us about the health of north korean dictator kim jong un after he fails to attend

a key state of the unconfirmed reports say he is ill after undergoing a heart surgery. i'm serious i was gonna thank you for joining us the southern german state of bavaria has canceled the october fest beer festival because of the corona virus the event attracts more than 6000000 visitors every year and authorities feared allowing it to go ahead would lead to a spike in infections as we report the move is likely to take both a 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 this is going to be a year without the 1st. about $6000000.00 visitors flock to the october 1st every year crowding the festival grounds but also the host city new nick the cancellation of the event is not only said news for the city it also means big financial losses. first as the value of 1500000000 euros for munich and many people profit from it it's not just those that have told office like to be a host fairground workers also in your shops it's also hotels restaurants retail trade and taxi drivers to. people

in munich now face a year without their beloved festival. but to this issue and hasn't come as a shock. when the monsoon if. i'm really sad but it was expected. if people come from all over the world we can't host a party like this one. if it's a tolerant maybe it's a great decision i have such respect for our state leadership the way they're handling things. october fest will be back again next year and then we'll enjoy it all the more. annoying i see they say. and so begins the countdown until 2021 with the next october 1st will hopefully take place. let's speak to correspondent boston heartache he's standing by for us in munich. and 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 say the image of not only munich and bavaria 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 a total says so it's using 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 place if they can take part in a couple fest and not just you festival is not going to happen what about the

economic impact of all of this i mean this is a multimillion euro business isn't it. absolutely as we heard in the report it's one between $2.13 euros which has 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 the attempt 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 program virus this year so the cancellation of the a top offense for them is just really another blow to the guts to me that's right so it's a big blow but given the current situation with the pandemic in germany also internationally does it really come as a surprise that october thought sas has been canceled. no i don't think so i mean

a lot of people expected this 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's always has course 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 or be the cause for another wave of this pandemic so they're the only responsible decision to really make here is to cancel the test 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 all right correspondent past and heartache speaking to us from near naked to talk to you. let's take

a look now at some other coronavirus news austria says it will allow restaurants bars and cafes as well as some schools and churches to reopen starting may 15th all will be subject to safety restrictions before the end of this week italy will announce plans for the gradual loosening of its lockdown measures starting on may 4th the world health organization is warning that rushing to ease restrictions will increase the risk of a resurgence of the disease currently the global death toll stands at more than 171000 according to a johns hopkins university in the u.s. the collapse in american crude prices has sent shock waves around the world pushing stock markets into losses and driving down other commodity prices oil markets are now in uncharted territory demand has fallen faster than producers can shut off their wells with storage space running out of oil is becoming more of a burden around the world than an asset. when its planes aren't flying and it's

roads are all but empty 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 or so it would go a little bit it's of 25 in $28.00 or of 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 crude futures 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 of time but that's a lot 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 full but what is most needed is a return in demand brought by a restart to the u.s. economy then the oil that continues to be pumped as unbroken pace can actually have enough places to go and let's get more on this now we have our financial correspondent chelsea delaney standing by at the frankfurt stock exchange hi healthy how have markets reacted to all of this turmoil and oil prices. 1st markets here in europe have sort of shrugged off these these issues with us oil as the problems pacific to the u.s. oil market it was seen as an isolated issued having to do with the lack of space specifically in oklahoma but investors are really rethinking that here in europe

today we've seen the dax fall about 3 percent and you mentioned earlier the drop in brant crude interest fallen about 20 percent so investors traders are really sounding the alarm that it's not just the u.s. it's not just oklahoma that's going to have storage problems it's really going to be the whole world that's running out of places to put all of this oil that would likely suggest oil prices are going to continue to fall and that's going to put a lot of pressure on a lot of parts of the economy of the hundreds of thousands of people that work in the oil sector of the countries that really depend on oil revenue and also all of the banks and investors that have went money to these oil firms over the past few years i should say when i ask you about a positive piece of economic news that we heard today these e.w. economic research group released its investor confidence index for germany it suggests that investors are actually upbeat why is that. well there are

2 parts of this report the 1st is how investors feel about the economy right now that part of the survey was was deeply negative for march so investors do see a lot of issues in the economy at this point given the lockdowns however they are quite optimistic about the future of the german economies so where the economy will be and perhaps 6 months that i think that's really reflecting these measures that central banks and the german government have put in place to help businesses and workers through this so investors still recognize that we're facing a steep recession but the safety net that policymakers have put in place is likely to to help the german economy weather the storm. delaney reporting from frankfurt thank you. now china and south korea have cast doubt on media reports that north korean leader kim jong un is gravely ill after undergoing heart surgery beijing junks closest allies said it had seen no signs indicating that the 36 year old was

critically ill that sentiment was echoed by officials in seoul who monitor their volatile neighbors movements very closely speculation emerged after kim was absent from celebrations last week for the birthday of his grandfather a key event honoring north korea's founder that he had never missed before. and we can speak to journalists frank smith he joins us from seoul hi frank what do we actually know about what's happened. well you pointed out of the in that introduction a little bit it's more about what we know didn't happen kim jong un didn't attend the 108th birthday anniversary of his grandfather kim il sung on april 15th normally he would go to that he had every time previously since he was leader of north korea back in 2011 so that's important the other thing that we need to look at is the source of the information that we have here there are anonymous sources within north korea actually i should say one single source the web site.

daily and kay reported initially from multiple sources that kim jong un had had surgery and the recovery was difficult and then another anonymous source in c.n.n. said that he had been incapacitated that it was a little bit more serious it's unclear whether those came from 2 different sources inside of north korea and we do need to question the timing as kim jong un was said to have this surgery on april 12th whereas north korean media reportedly said he was observing some air force exercises on that day so it's unclear really what the situation is now especially when you have these denials from the south korean government about any sort of change in north korea's posture or their government activity today frank a lot it's unclear also because north korea is an incredibly secretive state so how reliable is any of the information coming from their. well we're all exercising

a lot of speculation especially concerning the decision making process within north korea but you know back in 2011 this old house 80 of our access into north korean governments was laid bare kim kim jong il died the leader of north korea kim jong un's father kim jong il died it was 2 days later when you north korea announced it on their news show that we found out so they are very successful in preventing any information that they don't want out to get out. all right journalist frank smith a speaking to us there from seoul thank you frank thank you so much for joining us . are you coming up our 1900. 10 demick on south africa and don't forget you can always get the latest updates on

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