this is g.w. news a live from berlin hacked and hijacks scammers access a series of high profile twitter accounts and enough parents cryptocurrency scout bill gates for rock obama and you on must are among a number of public figures was a count posted tweet asking people to make better point transfers also coming up on the show. a step back for european efforts to crack down on tax avoidance a court overrules a decision requiring the tech giant apple to pay for $13000000000.00 euros in unpaid taxes to ireland it's

a major blow to the e.u.'s for its children in st heart deals for big business. plus they're on call 247 to care for germany's elderly but many migrant health care workers are paid for just a fraction of that time one of them is now taking her employer to court. i'm claire richardson in a welcome to the show that's where their accounts of several major global figures have been hacked and arst in a crypto currency scam barack obama joe biden and iran must were among those with accounts hijacked by scammers posting tweets to dupe people and making big pointer nations the tweets told users of the social media platform they had 30 minutes to send $1000.00 in bitcoin donations in order to double their money twitter temper.

he stopped many verified accounts from tweeting and said it was looking into the incidents well our reporter are pards so as he has been following this story for us about how did this happen well it's believed that a hacker or group of hackers and very adept ones at that were able to get past the cyber security system of twitter and then from there they were able to get into the individual accounts of some very well off people the names of which you have mentioned already just for an example and then they made a bogus post saying you know what limited time offer you can double your money and so a number of people fell for it and you know it's a blow to to it to twitter frankly and what has twitter's reaction been to this incident where they looked into it very quickly but it took them a few hours to finally post on their website that they've limited access now to a number of accounts they've also made it impossible to change passwords for a while and that's because when some people saw that they had a problem with their twitter account they would change their past for get rid of

the post and then would come up again and that's probably because the hackers were able to see the change happening and they just reposed so this went back and forth and so now twitter has stopped that are and how much damage can we say it was done well we know through the bitcoin accounting system that these hackers made more than 100000 u.s. and bitcoin and that came from about 300 so-called donors but i think the biggest temperature right now is to twitter's reputation and they're going to have to revamp their system all right i pads there is a thank you very much for that analysis. it is a win for the irish government of the tech giant apple and for companies looking to do business in europe on wednesday a court struck down as has a decision to buy the european union that ordered apple to pay the irish government $13000000000.00 euros in unpaid taxes ireland has long denied that its tax arrangements with apple amount to illegal state aid the european commission is expected to appeal the ruling it european court of justice. yes. the ruling hands

a big legal victory to apple the e.u. general court said the e.u. commission did not succeed in showing that the tech giant had received an illegal economic advantage in ireland over its low taxes the decision is a major blow to competition commissioner mug greater vest there's efforts to crack down on low tax regimes in the block the commission bans who really behind the objective that all companies should pay their fair share of tax if member states give certain multinational companies tax advantages not available to their rivals this harms fair competition in the e.u. the e.u. commission has 2 months time to decide if it wants to challenge the ruling in need use highest court the core of the problem is that the e.u. does not have one common tax code but the moment firms officially pay 12.5 percent corporate tax in ireland that's compared with the e.u.

average of 21.3 percent officially companies in germany have to cough up at least 30 percent that alone has attracted many companies to ireland and in fact apple paid far less tax at times for example as little as 0.005 percent in 2014 when the tech giant paid just 50 euros tax on every 1000000 euros in profit is the 2nd ruling that the e.u. commission has lost last year the institution lost a case against starbucks which was accused of owing $30000000.00 euros in back taxes to the netherlands it all shows how difficult it is to crack down on cases of alleged corporate tax avoidance. well let's go now to some other stories making news around the world in brazil a coronavirus cases are now approaching 2000000 more than 1200 people died from cove in 1000 on wednesday pushing the country's overall death toll past 75000 brazil has the 2nd highest number of cases and face polities after the united

states despite these figures of brazil's main cities are continuing to reopen shops and return to normal life. authorities on the spanish island of majorca have ordered the immediate closure of bars and nightclubs beachfront areas popular with young tourists images of german and british visitors partying without face masks and ignoring social distancing rules have led to fears of another coronavirus outbreak. armenians have rallied in the capital yerevan amid escalating tensions with neighboring azerbaijan the protesters gathered outside the ukrainian embassy and accused of siding with their adversary recent days have seen the worst outbreak of cross border hostilities a years over the disputed territory of megara no car bomb. iran says at least 7 ships have been damaged in a blaze that broke out at a shipyard in the southern part of the share there have been

a string of unexplained fires and explosions at military nuclear and industrial sites across the country since late june. well it is africa's most disputed dam project and is fueling tensions along the nile river between ethiopia and its neighbors new satellite images appear to show that ethiopia has started filling its grand renaissance dam on the nile the move is likely to spark protests from egypt and sudan which both depend on water from the nile talks among 3 among the 3 countries ended in deadlock on tuesday and egypt has now asked ethiopia for urgent clarification on whether it has begun to fill the dam. it is these images that are likely to anger ethiopia's neighbors downstream water has started filling up at the grand renaissance dam along the river nile here and earlier image and now this both egypt and sudan depend on water from the nile and against the

dam project here is ethiopia is going to do at least in this continue this with this 1st year of. and. presumably if it can't reach an agreement within the next few weeks when it sort of fell short of would. not be able to continue the negotiation process. ethiopia says the giant hydroelectric project is critical for the country to pull its nearly 110000000 citizens out of poverty and become a major power exporter in the region. egypt already battling huge water shortages relies on the nile for more than 90 percent of its water supply. ethiopia and its neighbors have for years been engaged in tense negotiations over the dam earlier this week a new round of talks ended without an agreement though some observers are still

optimistic. the people in. the movie like in. ethiopia insist it's not actively filling up the dam but that the recent high water levels ah just a result of the heavy seasonal rainfall. many in the region fear that filling up the dam without an agreement could push the countries involved to the brink of military conflict. here in germany caring for the elderly is a job that's it done in large part by migrant workers from eastern europe many of them are on call around the clock providing help to hundreds of thousands of elderly people many carers say they're being seriously underpaid for their work one bulgarian care has now taken her employer to court for legit exploitation. coffee and cake in the afternoon

a german tradition that reminds divina of the time she spent in berlin as a care worker back then she looked after an elderly german woman. gives us a from i was on hand 24 hours a day. i got up when she was in pain and called out for me to change her bed clothes or diaper. i didn't have any free time or days on. the moon i worked through the whole time. to what i mean. according to her work contract to a prima was only meant to work 6 hours a day and was not on standby the rest of the time she's now the 1st eastern european care worker to sue for a back pay but she's not the only one. what the women tell us and what happens all the time is that they don't have the courage to speak up because they're afraid they'll lose their job and they think they'll be put onto

a kind of blacklist and won't be able to get a job in this industry again. the federation of trade unions is helping with the bring this court case. the agencies work in the way that gives them the lowest risk and the highest amount of flexibility. but in the end it's the care workers who are the victims. around 300000 elderly people in germany are looked after in their homes by care workers from eastern europe mostly from poland and romania and bulgaria placement agencies promised german families personnel who will be available around the clock to look after their relatives. we don't have enough caregivers and especially not registered caregivers there says it's he who would be able to fill these extra $300000.00 jobs so we are dependent on the care workers from eastern europe to take care of the elderly there is no other way he mentions

of. being there is now following the trial from bulgaria the labor court in berlin has already ruled on the lawsuit and ordered her former employer to pay her $42000.00 euros in back wages but the sentence was appealed the final decision is now pending. my message to my colleagues and all the others is you have responsibilities but you also have rights that you should defend. the question now is whether other care workers will follow in her footsteps. the british city of bristol has a new sculpture to replace the statue of a slave trader hold down last month a sculpture of a black protester who helped topple him now stands in his place the artwork was installed without permission from bristol's authorities.

the moment that sparked a nationwide to pay supposed head to deal with britain's colonial past. the 17th century slave trader at work colston was pulled down by black lives matter protesters in bristol than june. and tackling the face of many of his victims thrown into the sea. the prince he once looked down from now has a new occupant local resident chen read. the artworks inspired by a viral instagram post i read and picturing her shortly after the coast and start she was toppled you know for me getting on the plane you know i raise my fist and i raise my fist to give power back to the people back to the slaves who died at the hands of pollsters and titled the search of power the sculpture was installed without the local councils approval and intervention dreamed up by artists marquand you know we have to keep it secret because this is

a debate to be really clear this is a temporary is salacious it's not saying this is what should be on the print forever they say this conversation is in the public realm and i want this go through part of the conversation. they hope to stop she will inspire more action to talk all racism it's definitely cold snooze no more and it's time for change it's time to move on it's time for people to keep educating themselves and i just think that's really important. bristow's mayor has not come firmed if and when the statue will be removed but she says the future of the plan must be decided in a process that includes everyone in the city even those who would have preferred that were colston to remain. so forgot you can always get deja vu news on the go just download our apps from google play or from the outstart that will give you access to all the latest news from around the world as well as push notifications

for it means breaking news and if you're part of a news story you can also use the d w out to send us photos and videos of what's happening. of course you can also stay up to date on our web site at g.w. dot com i'm claire richardson in berlin and thanks so much for watching. how does a virus spread. why do we have it and when will all of us. just through the tactics of a weekly radio show is called spectrum if you would like any information on the coronavirus or any other science topic you should really check out our talk cast you can get it wherever you go your pod cast you can also find us at. science.