successful i am. going to. start chanting so i'm just don't. cut. the book. to the back. this is the w. news live from berlin new charges against top executives at germany's wire part state prosecutors arrested 3 former board members including c.e.o. marcus brown for a 2nd time investigators now say the onetime blue chip companies faked its earnings for the past 5 years also coming up firefighters are told to the chinese consulate

in houston texas that's the trumpet ministration orders it to close citing concerns over u.s. intellectual property with diplomats boarding sensitive documents. to the women and children stranded by the collapse of a so-called islamic state many of them are european citizens or your current french men fighting to bring his daughter and grandson college. i'm sumi so misconducts good to have you with us german prosecutors say they have arrested the former chief executive and 2 board members of payments processor wire card as part of fraud investigations marcus brown and the board members were detained a new nick investigators say the 3 are suspected of taking income to insulate the company's balance sheet wire card went bankrupt after revealing a nearly $2000000000.00 euro hole in its accounts last month that scandal has

triggered criticism of germany's financial oversight and led to calls for the government to explain how much it knew about wire card's dubious accounting practices. and we have stephen beardsley from d.w. business with us for more on this story hi stephen thanks for joining us so we have a few more arrests do we now have a fuller picture of what happened that wire card well one of the things that we have from the announcement from prosecutors today is a headline an amount sort of a dollar figure here a figure i should say that really is resets itself that's 3200000000 euros in fraud that is from investors from the banks who lent money that would make wire part of this is true that would make this the biggest deception from a corporation in the post-war time so it really gives you an idea of how large this fraud is just to remind people why a car this fraud at the scandal is based on basically fake revenues from 3rd party partners that were card had in asia basically they were booking revenues that didn't actually exist they amounted to 2000000000 euros which was about

a quarter of the balance sheet where a car was eventually forced admit that that money never existed and it went from being a darling of german tech firms to absolutely a pariah there really raises a lot of questions about how this could have happened and what is the political fallout from its massive i mean 1st of all it's a huge embarrassment for germany any way to look at it but it's also a regulation failure of regulation should say 1st and foremost baffin which is the top financial regulator here in germany the institutional regulator that's really come under fire because when a lot of these allegations 1st came out from the newspaper the financial times baffin actually targeted the reporters and reported them for a criminal investigation instead of going after the allegations themselves that's a huge black eye for all this to come back on them and so what we're seeing is that there's going to be questioning of civil key ministers the finance minister the economy minister in germany and then there's more criticism on merkel as well or more of a spotlight on medical she'd actually advertise russia say she pushed mentioned wire card from what we know in

a meeting with chinese officials in beijing in 2019 i believe as hers looking to acquire. chinese business and they. has come out that she actually had been briefed on some of the allegations against him so the question is what did the government know when did it know it what kinds of conversations were happening between wire card and the finance ministry for example and what about investors where they left in all of this is the real irony of this is that the investors were the ones who really pushed for wired hard to come clean they said look there are so many of these allegations out there the reporting is really solid tell us what's going on and then it all came back and it blew up in their face their stock went from about 104 euro's down to 2 to single euro's in a matter of taste so they've lost a lot they're already lawsuits they're in place there's also a lawsuit against the auditing firm or seen young who basically checked off a lot of the books for a while so those are in place the question is what happens after bankruptcy will they get those that money back stephen beardsley from d.w.

business thank you for bringing us that story. now to another escalation between the world's 2 biggest economies the united states has ordered china to close its consulate in houston texas the u.s. state department said it was a necessary measure to protect american intellectual property beijing has called the move a political provocation and a violation of international norms just hours after the order was issued firefighters will call to the consulate. bins on fire inside the courtyard at the chinese consulate in houston witnesses said they could smell paper being burned the 1st whiff of a bigger story because this firefighters arrived chinese state media started reporting the u.s. had ordered the consulate to be closed. it's a political provocation unilaterally launched by the u.s. side which seriously violates international law basic norms governing international

relations and the bilateral consular agreements between china and the u.s. china strongly condemn such an outrageous move. beat you to it or you. are speaking in denmark the u.s. secretary of state said china had stolen intellectual property. we are setting up clear expertise sions for how the chinese communist party is going to behave and when they don't who are going to take actions that protect the american people protect our security our national security and also protect our economy and jobs that's the actions that you're saying taken by present trump will continue to engage in those the u.s. directive comes a day off to 2 chinese nationals were charged with hacking said to be working a spice they're accused among other things of trying to steal coronavirus vaccine research. campaign targeted intellectual property and confidential business information held by the private sector including covert 19 related treatment

testing and vaccines. back in houston this was his closest firefighters could get to the consulate they weren't allowed in chinese officials have 72 hours to get out which china is threatening to close u.s. consulates in response. to 5 may have been pushed out of the u.s. china relationship is smoldering as much as ever. let's check in on some other stories making headlines around the world the u.s. government will pay nearly $2000000000.00 to buy $100000000.00 doses of pfizer and german company biotechs cope at $1000.00 vaccine a pfizer spokesperson says the firms will only receive the money if their vaccine is deemed safe and effective the deal allows the government to acquire an additional $500000000.00 doses. greek firefighters are battling to control a large forest fire near a seaside village in the eastern peloponnese authorities say they had to evacuate

a residential settlement and catch trees because the blaze was moving towards a military camp or explosives are still. it's a dilemma for many european governments what to do with citizens who joined the so-called islamic state in syria and iraq among them women and children many of them are living in kurdish controlled refugee camps their status in limbo european countries are reluctant to bring their citizens back home prefer them to face trial in the region instead of human rights groups say governments should repatriate their citizens especially the most vulnerable and deal with them on home ground the biggest group is french citizens including $400.00 women and children in our next report we meet and twine who's fighting to bring his daughter and grandson back to france and a note the man asked us not to use his real name. on trying is used to standing his ground the former trade unionist has defended workers' rights his whole life but

when 5 years ago is 26 year old daughter suddenly left to join isis in iraq he had dropped bottom. it was my house came tumbling down on top of me. she had always been a good student and we didn't see this thing coming at all our family is ignore stake but she converted to islam without telling us what i told to do you know what you're getting yourself into and who these people are that you're joining he. last year his daughter was captured by the kurds and brought to the whole camp he kept in touch with her until she and her baby born in syria that is 5 weeks ago on this one is today saying his face on camera for the 1st time he says he has nothing left to lose. so i don't know exactly what she did but i'm not the judge she should be held accountable for her actions and she has the right to

a fair trial like everyone else that's the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship we're creating a 2nd going ton i'm in there and what about my grandson 18 months old he's responsible for nothing more you know. the french government has only repatch rated about 30 children from the council and refuses to bring that women and men. want to ensure we are proceeding according to international law people should be judged in a country where they are alleged to have committed crimes we take back young children if and when the mother agrees that we should take charge of them. but this lawyer representing the families of 14 women in the camps says that approach actually goes against international law. so the kurdistan doesn't exist so there are no judges anti as people are being arbitrarily detained plus

their crimes started in front of it i think they are accused of joining a terrorist organization good movement should be judged here and these children are in mortal danger 300 of them died at all horgan 29000 juta the living conditions france has an obligation to protect them but it's leaving them there to rahman's. france is not the only country reluctant to repatch rated citizens who left to join the so-called islamic state about 1000 western europeans are still being held in syria and iraq only a few of them have been brought back so far together with other families on 20 has gone to court to force the government to bring back his daughter and grandson he believes repatriation is actually in the government's own interest. rates an attack on one hand the kurds just open the gates and some women escape to join us so leaving these people in the cabs is a lot more dangerous than bringing them back. if they manage to get away there is

a real risk they might commit more attacks here in france or you know he's determined not to lose hope so that one day he can finally meet his grandson. in south africa the number of corona infections is growing rapidly with an average of more than $10000.00 cases per day since the end of march the country has implemented one of the world's strictest lock downs due to the pandemic that's having severe economic consequences not least for the food restaurant industry many in the sector now fear that hundreds of thousands of jobs could be lost our correspondent dan krishna reports from cape town. a 1000000 seats on the streets this is how restaurants called the biggest ever united protests in the history of south africa's restaurant industry when the center of capes on greece street normally it's really was crossed but at the moment you can see it's business move tables and chairs on the streets to protest against the current looked on

regulations and to highlight the plight of the industry many are disappointed and angry say. we haven't had an income for about 4 months now and things are just getting worse we just need some sort of support from the government some sort of sign that concerns that you know we will be operating for some time i mean the industry is taking such a big hit to taking such a big hit one of the best places the closing place is making money are not really taking such a big hit and it's just sad because there's just no support from anybody at this point we don't have much long left i mean we're on the only one so you walk up and down british rate which used to be the national capital of capetown. and you see how many to let signs of. where we were in dire straits now we're breaking point we do know that. he. will be taking.

that. at the beginning of the lock down restaurants have to stop their operation completely since june allowed to operate again limited the past. and many here say this is not enough to survive the sale of alcohol is banned and many are rely on the bigger margins that they have when they sell brings compared to foods also there's a night curfew in place starting at 9 pm essentially killing the dinner business the restaurant association of south africa says already 70 percent of their food lost which means 800000 people out of work and further jobs could follow the tourist season here starts in september but there's no indication whether tourism will be allowed by them or not. and before we go a remarkable video has emerged showing how 2 french children escaped a blaze in

a tower block in the southeastern city of grenoble as black smoke and girls to their apartment 1st one brother and then the next plunged at least 30 meters into the outstretched arms of residents below. i the center grew and 10 years old they were subsequently treated for smoke inhalation to the people who caught them unfortunately suffered broken so. that's it for this news update thank you for watching to give you. a meal and i'm talking about the 2nd season on the. planet on the brink of disaster we did long in-depth interview experts about one question how to change the leadership.