following for you here indeed with one month to go until he faces reelection u.s. president has been infected by the rotavirus trial confirmed on twitter that both he and 1st lady melania trump have tested positive for coverage 19 and enter florentine together trophy just 74 years old placing him in a high risk. in washington. to stay with us to check out what we've got for you online w dot com i'm sorry mark. up today don't miss our highlights. program. w dot com highlights. this is some dope story a stubborn rice farmer from thailand. his problem tests. his

credo no chemicals. and he's trying to. step. out. some orders. students from the past don't stand a chance. training successful. budget that. starts october 15th w. little donald trump announces he has coronavirus u.s. futures take a dive within moments of the u.s. president's tweet meanwhile stock exchanges in asia also react also coming up in the program. as germany marks 30 years since reunification its economy still shows divisions between east and west we'll look at some of the reasons why. i will see

how parisians are hoping to rise above the city's notorious traffic problem. this is day to be a business on robots in berlin welcome to the program and we begin with the news that donald trump says he and his wife millennia have tested positive for corona virus the u.s. president made the announcement through his twitter account he had the 1st lady were already in quarantine after one of president trump's closest aides hicks was also found to have covered 19 news came at around 1 am in new york and u.s. futures were quick to react. and on that let's cross to our financial correspondent in frankfurt pound day i should toss this reaction from investors was almost instant. yeah yes absolutely it was swift

you know you mentioned that the futures market in the u.s. in europe they all turned negative the stock market in japan also to a negative people went for the see if evan assets like dollar yen perform better and that's because the investors are actually keeping from this process of what this news means for the markets there is this element of uncertainty there because the especially at a time when the u.s. is struggling to come up with a fresh fiscal stimulus plan remember body johnson also contracted this disease and that even then the markets reacted negatively but then they settled down but this time it's a little different because it comes so close to the elections in the u.s. and that adds an extra bit of uncertainty there as you just from being frank thanks a lot for keeping across this for us. and on the news this weekend germany is marking 30 years since east and west became one but 3 decades on from reunification

the fall of the fall of the berlin wall the former east germany is still lagging behind the west here's how the differences stack up in numbers. no matter what job people in the east on less than their western counterparts sales clerks in the east have around $26000.00 euros a year gross income whereas in the west they earn $28000.00 secretaries in the east earn around 27000 euros while the same job in the west fetches 34000 engineers in the east can gross 46000 but in the west they get 59000 people in the west might earn more but they don't necessarily receive a bigger pension in 2019 male pensioners in the west received 40 euros more than in the east but the situation is different for women female pensioners in the east received almost $300.00 euros more per month than in the west that's because women in former east germany worked more than those in west germany thereby earning more

pension but that is hardly any influence on economic power in eastern germany in the east g.d.p. per capita is around $33000.00 euros per year in the west it's considerably higher at around $43000.00 the unemployment rate in the west is also lower than in east germany in the west it's around 6 percent at times in the 1990 s. unemployment in the east hovered at 18 percent today the rates are slowly converging but when it comes to the economy german reunification is still taking more time than initially expected. let's speak to professor ranked grohl who is president of the house the institute for economic research which is based in the on the east german city of how the lower wages higher unemployment lower g.d.p. while the former eastern german states still lagging behind. there are

a number of reasons it seems communication of factors one is going to firms seem to be less productive and west german firms around 20 percent less productive across the more. often the geographical structure of countries in the indifference or small rule less urban and there are less hiding urban service jobs compared to the rest. so was there something wrong with the way in which reunification miss brought about and the way that it was carried out that means we now still have this that well you know and of course it's true that most people would have expected that conversions will happen in korea you know free capital mobility free labor mobility the same institutions phillis same legal system most economists would have expected going to urge them to have quite a family and in didn't it was a pretty convergence at 1st but then it's been slowed down and in hindsight maybe

there are some things once was done differently including for example to pull such a focus on industrial jobs manufacturing jobs wired and same time everywhere else and manufacturing jobs were lining well in the u.s. so are you here countries who are trying to swim against the stream to speak by recreating a little bit germany in the east. perhaps we should also. form was less on the run high but of course at the time if you mention in the contribution their usual unemployment was very high so essentially firms are subsidized in the arm and of course that we use is called activity and hence may ultimately explain the difference in terms of the income. but how we moving in the right direction now we see unemployment in the east and west starting to converge there with you using is there a brighter future for this. well it's actually before the crisis

we were in full employment in germany where they ceased all west yes unemployment in east germany was a little higher and that has structural reasons and it's not something that will actually change so we were at full employment actually the problem was not so much find it was a problem to find somebody to fill jobs. and we've made great progress and since we'll of course now also reduce the subsidies to keep people in a job because in our own ramy any sense it is indians and 100 be optimistic that convergence or at least a big step towards emergence will take place in a serious. to have professor reich growth president of the helen institute for economic research thanks a lot for joining us thank you. now the fall of the berlin wall was the beginning of the end for many east german companies who couldn't compete with their western

equivalents however some of the skills and expertise they delta was simply too precious to. what young shoe boxes bring out here may look unspectacular but this lens is worth as much as a family car and it represents an unusual success story optics are one of communist east germany's biggest exports but when germany reunified 30 years ago few thought the state run college sized plant here in garo had much of a chance against tough western competition 3 optical engineers took a chance and bought the company shares to keep the optical traditional alive this was all in that certainly wasn't clear to the founders at the time what they were getting themselves into or and then of course over the years we noticed or i noticed just how turbulent it was in the early days of the 1990 s. with. the un it seemed to be stacked against the 3 who had never run a business before and had little idea about the market economy. manfred shoe box

was one of them. the 1st thing he did was to hire an economist. whom you know a lot of to sign over to just as few had to be able to recruit the money we were spending those deep in the middle i n's 2 naman as a whole we also had to build relationships with banks on oaf and develop other ties with you to create a broad network riotous nits to show off and the lack of relationships with banks in particular broke the backs of many startups in eastern germany they needed the banks money for investment but they had no experience dealing with banks at all . you know tavis is not an issue it's in a. just after the crisis is that these companies were not trusted as much as the old established ones that had existed for 3540 or 50 years. through the

filter from the young children in the top of. their strong point was their technical knowledge their company known as p.t.o. g. or precision optics gira was full of optics experts even so uncertainty about its future meant many sleepless nights for the founders. but that was something they kept to themselves. we couldn't tell the newly hired him that we will try to make it work they could have gone to work for other companies but we wanted to keep this team together and bunch of. the team stuck by the owners and out of 50 employees they soon grew to 180 the road to get there was an arduous one but in the end the company clearly made the cut. elsewhere in europe paris is desperately trying to deal with its notorious

traffic problems one of the ways it's planning to do it is with flying taxis test flights already planned for next year the german start a volatile supplying the vehicle and the latest model was just presented in the french capital. it may not be for those afraid of heights the flying taxi can reach an altitude of $500.00 metres at that tight it travels a to speed of 110 kilometers per hour the regional governments of is pleased with its performance. that there are more in the clique it's for the electric so it's climate neutral and doesn't pollute the air it's totally innovative and offers a new way to do things it's very exciting to imagine that we're inventing a new form of transport spoke. the german startup vala copter thinks it's on the right track they've already applied for the hard to obtain approval of the european union aviation safety agency we're

a little more than 2 years away from final certification so we spread towards the end of 2022 would see the 1st commercial routes. and hopefully it will be perth. the 1st tickets are already available for around $300.00 euros but ultimately the journey with one of these drones should cost the same as taking a normal taxi. and just time for a minor top story this hour markets of the reactance of other u.s. president donald trump says he and his wife alarming have tested positive for corona virus the u.s. president made the announcement through his twitter account that's all from me and the business team here in berlin if you do want more from us check out our website dot com slash business for us on facebook and twitter.

gens my chosen carla takes in for democracy. in belarus will not back down in the face of police violence cropping up appeal for a terrorism regime. they continue to demonstrate and demand before socratic president step down. it's women look at.

this girl. on d w. i. probably will not succeed in dividing the south not succeed in taking the people off the streets because we're tired of this dictatorship. taking a stand global news that matters d. w. made for mines. hello and welcome to focus on europe thanks for joining us today europe's last remaining strong man is clinging to his seat there are rosy and alexander lukashenko as the.