probably. the chinese state has a lot of money at its disposal. and that's how it's expanding the serving of the status and position in the world. china's game we truly. storage feb 19th on d w. growth of the euro zone shrank significantly last year the reason the coronavirus pandemic and a string of lockdowns weighing down on business we talked to the president of germany's evil institute also coming up the new leader of the world trade organization and go see joey reality as want against vaccine nationalists and calling for enough vaccines for everyone but can the w.t. old rules on intellectual property be waived to allow manufacturers to produce more

jobs. hello welcome to the business i want to jones in berlin good to have you with us and we're starting with new economic data hot off the press of course norte point 6 percent that's how much g.d.p. fell in the eurozone and the 4th quarter of 2020 that's according to the latest figures released by citing the fallout from the covert 19 pandemic on an annualized basis economic growth in the single currency bloc tumbled even by 6.8 percent and for more on that i'm joined now by claimants fullest president of the evil institute life it's institute for economic research at the university of new nick so very good to have you with us and of course the 1st thing i would like to know because this is fresh day to hot of the press what do you make of it. i think it's no surprise that we that they your recovery from the crisis has

thought of the 4th quarter g.d.p. as even frank a little it's that it's the 2nd wave of infections that weighs down on the economy at the same time. this the way we handle this wave of infections is better than the past one in the 1st one we interrupted the bad you chains industrial production decline and the dent is smallest so serious about its model ok so you're basically saying that the european union and the eurozone as well is is on the right track now because you finance ministers are meeting today virtually again in order to talk about amongst other things resilience pandemic resilience in the e.u. and to taking the right mischa's making the right priorities when it comes to funding where would you say is the biggest priority well the right track i don't know i think what's missing in the european funding in particular is projects with

a european role what we need is bought across and projects financed with european money what's going on currently is that a lot of money is going into national projects and maybe that money's just replacing meshal money so we need to wait how exactly this plays out but the what's clearly missing is that projects with bought across in europe in significance like big infrastructure projects not so much repeating what's been done at the national level right i'd have course. at some point the pandemic hopefully will be over and europe will still have to be ready to face on the challenges east europe ready to to tackle issues like for example things in the green deal do we have an awful breadth to deal with that now. i think europe needs to cooperate in a more consistent way and we need to think harder about areas where if we work

together we can create additional bad view and these areas are indeed climate policy defensive foreign policy try pharmacy and not enough is happening at the european level in climate policy i think we need a strong focus on the c o 2 price and on protecting competitiveness of the european economy too much time is spent discussing subsidizing green investments that's important as well but there is a danger that we are subsidizing people in companies call not clearly looting often not emitting carbon what we should do is shocks those who pollute and they use that money then to to do investments by claimants for this they have president of the evil institute in munich thank you so much for your time thank you carol. now looking at one euro zone and european union member until recently portugal surprised the world by having grown a virus better under control than its european neighbors but 2 weeks ago portugal's

medical system almost collapsed after christmas and new year's festivities lets to an explosion of covert cases a health crisis is also beginning to weigh on the economy. these trucks should be rolling down the highway from portugal to germany to oregon solves manages $160.00 trucks and even more drivers their biggest customer is volkswagen. with them and put them. leave more or less lost half of our business we're only making 40 to 50 percent of the trips to germany that we used to make. the drop in demand for german cars has meant fewer contracts for portuguese suppliers and it's been like that for months now at the moment the country's in lockdown restaurants and retail shops are all closed and people are only allowed on the streets to buy essential or to go to work at least there is work for example at elevator producer schmidt the german

company has 500 employees located near porto the pandemic hasn't stopped production there. so it wasn't easy but we have been able to keep working everyone stayed active the whole time the construction industry kept going and that affected suppliers like us they can something be forgotten it's a much bigger problems schmidt is one of 300 german companies in bor chicle most of them have made it through the pandemic unscathed. from 2 months of varies from company to company but in general from what we're hearing it's going pretty well life to us i mean. but for how long strict travel restrictions are becoming a problem truck driver hugo farrow used to make the trip between the v.w. factory near lisbon and vote. but 4 times a month but portugal's considered a high risk area now. the situation is more complicated because we need to have

a negative test to enter it that makes the trips to germany more difficult to other countries. it's a serious situation for the logistics company doric and solves is already looking for new contracts in other countries. time now for a look at some of the other business stories making news u.s. investment bank morgan stanley plans to move about 100000000000 euros of assets to frankfurt according to bloomberg other banks including goldman sachs and j.p. morgan chase have relocated staff and assets to the e.u. after the u.k. voted to leave the block london and brussels have so far failed to reach a deal on financial services. oil prices are up to trading at more than $63.00 per barrel as a cold front over parts of the united states effects both supply and demand with millions of households trying to stay warm and with the weather shutting wells and refineries in texas the biggest crude producing state in the united states.

the newly appointed head of the world trade organization is calling for enough vaccines for everyone countries such as south africa and india trying to persuade the w.t. oh to eliminate peyton's to help fight the global pandemic it would enable them to produce generic vaccine cheaply the pharmaceutical manufacturers say patents reward inventions they cover the high costs of research without this compensation that the no in huntsman's know you drugs and vaccines. and for more on that issue i'm joined now by elizabeth mass ceuta from the doctors without borders axis campaign here in berlin good to have you with us. let's just 1st talk about the new head of the w t o because until the end of last year. chaired the global vaccine alliance gavi which aims to increase access to vaccines around the world how hopeful are you that her appointment now will help the cause of developing nations in this pandemic

. yes obviously it's great to have someone has experience as her and not to have the w t o in the times of crisis in the times of the global pandemic and someone with it awareness of what the needs are the die and needs to get makes us in the global self so yeah we are hopeful that this will maybe also push members who actually you know once have to vote on the issues you've mentioned the waiver that has been proposed by indians in africa which is supported now about $100.00 countries but also blocked by some rich countries namely also canada the us the european union so it will still be up to member states to post push this waiver and to vote for it so that it can actually go into action so that we see more of it seems that everybody went wide so i mean you just mentioned india and south africa put forward a quite interesting proposal they want to produce generica drugs and vaccine of course to fight covert 19 rather than wait for them

a costly and scabs original drugs what all those stumbling blocks why are nations not supporting it. really as doctors without borders have seen now for 20 years that intellectual property rights such as patients for example can be barriers to access so we've seen those in the past and this is happening again now in the demick so and as you said the waiver doesn't. make scenes and also includes drugs and also in just testing some diagnostics but also present protective equipment on ventilators so this would be something to to break barriers all around to access and also for the access and yeah in a time of scarcity and where we have a few companies who are struggling to supply the global demond like never seen before so it's natural that not only a few countries can supply the boss demond as soon as possible. time is of the

essence everybody wants the vaccine as fast as possible but even developed nations like the european union are struggling to get enough vaccines how do you convince everyone to share the little we have i'm actually kind of like the european union's fixing nations at the moment but we have to see that the aim of vaccinating up to 70 percent off the population by the end of summer this is a huge game and fosse looking like doctors without borders at the global picture and we see it cannot be that people that are not at risk ph in that and all patients that are not health workers why should they and rich nations be vaccinated before for example health workers and poor countries we've seen it now we see it all the teams in the lobbying is for team one of the big we seem in chasen's spreading and this is obviously dangerous health systems have already been strengthened before the pandemic in some countries and now they're virtually breaking down there not enough intensive care units to take care of patients so

what really are aiming at and what we are calling for is for just and global distribution so that worldwide especially at risk patients and health workers can be vaccinated 1st and not as the w h old president of the tender said to have a few countries with a lot of fixin's and a few countries with no vaccines but we have should have all countries with few maxine's and then time by time scale up the immunization of the population around because this global pandemic wave that maybe that is why it's finished exactly that's why it's called a pandemic so we have to tackle it from that angle it is a big message from doctors without borders thank you so much for your time. it is a reminder of the top story this hour. the economy in the euro zone shrank by 0.6 percent in the stream runs from october to december that compared to the previous quarter and that's not as bad as analysts had been expecting.

as a business update here on g.w. at this hour while for more you can always check out our website stats t w dot com slash business where you follow us on social media for me in the team member lance thanks for watching stay safe. the fight against the corona virus pandemic. has the rate of infection been developing what does the latest research say. information and context the coronavirus update 19. on t w. children to come to see. one giant problem and new an enormous amount of each

year you. implied it may be changing lives really count. how will climate change affect us and our children the. dot com slash water. and especially bitter winter in the northern hemisphere has been making living on the streets even tougher. crowded shelters are the safest place to spend the night with the pandemic still raging. it's not just the cold the homeless have to contend with over $1000.00 poses a special danger for a group likely to have other health problems. now with many hotels in teach you to the crisis some cities have found a clever way to bring the vulnerable population in from the cold.

or many european capitals adopted the strategy during the 1st wave germany's taken longer hotels in berlin at least opens their doors in time for the big chill and with tourists staying away it's helping keep is this going thanks to the homeless. reports. when i see your brains hit berlin some have it's harder to find shelter than others but this man got lucky. kristen who doesn't want to give his full name normally sleeps in an emergency shelter during winter now he puts the few things he owns inside a hotel over here kristen feel safe and he can take a shower he also gets served warm food really upgrade he finds shopping container i used to sleep in a container this is

a hotel that's much better then through on that was all on its. the hotel titer is one of several hotels and berlin which are now welcoming homeless people like a stone it is a win win situation he has a place to sleep and take shelter from the cold while the hotel can make some money the city pays for the permit ation. the bats were urgently needed explains organizer wolfgang fitch due to the covert prices shelters had to reduce the number of beds to keep up hygiene measures. and. the shelter usually puts people in dormitories or even on camping mats and big shared rooms we can't do that because of cope it we are very grateful that we can use the hotel because we can put people in twins rooms it means we never have more than 2 or 3 people in of room type as on

to them. and there is more that guests can return to their beds all winter long if they stick to the rules that makes all the difference says martha who helps from the place and has a close connection to many of them. now. on that one from the young woman when they get here there and washed in the exhaust often depressed and lacking prospects after a few weeks here they've changed completely they have a different outlook on the future some of them find work some even a home of their own. something better anyway. living in his own home that is also christan stream he is hopeful of realizing it once the covert crisis is over for expect when is from the european federation of

national organizations working with the homeless how can others be helped to permanent housing during this crisis and even more importantly once it's over and hotel rooms that are longer on offer. well i think what we have to like me 1st say that it's important the most member states in the european union have done an effort to get people off the streets into. what is important we start that you know in the about the last quarter oh no. you don't want to these homeless people i mean we're talking about 10 thousands of homeless people which as we don't want them to be pushed back into the shelter or even worse into the street so we have to make sure they move into supportive housing as much as possible so i think that's a really important commitment that we have to get from policymakers and look at national what about using this opportunity to test the part of the population that may not otherwise to see a doctor. well yes of course homeless people are more from the.

general population so they should. be a priority they should be a priority group when it comes to testing unfortunately what we see in most countries that they have to pay out of the group there's only a handful of countries including germany where the homeless population and the professionals working with them are a priority group. and vaccinated quite quite soon so i think it's important to learn from up and to push the testing invites a nation in the home as much as possible they mowe. prone to covert though i've heard of reports of them having a high dose of vitamin d. think lee because they're outdoors so much more and also that quite socially distance from from the rest of us. well i think they are more from the i think that is. a lot of preexisting conditions make them more vulnerable but.

don't think we're homeless people are outside the whole time most of the homeless people actually shot at in. that so anyway the head is really quite bad in general so that it has no doubts that they are more vulnerable to the. infection than the general population and which of the social distancing is really difficult like if you do finish out that most of us are overcrowded so i think it would be wrong to suggest that it's easier for homeless people to socially distance is it also a fact that homelessness is increasing at the moment with so many people losing their jobs. yes but when this people was increasing. in a crisis between 20092019 we have seen in the european union a 770 increase in the number of people experience with us and so on and any given day which means are sleeping on the streets are sleeping rough or in

a shelter that was up in peace. accord or not because it's difficult to say if when this is further increasing but we estimate like we think that it's further increasing and what would especially concerned about is how the. evil if at the moment most member states of moratorium. in place they wouldn't last forever there is increasing pressure to relief this moratorium inevitably need to a spike in evictions and we defeat the spike in eviction we translate in a spike in homelessness so we'll probably see we see that increase before or not we're probably seen increase after quarter when i was well what about i think what about the housing 1st initiative is that making a difference in in some countries instead of makeshift health care and psychological support the homeless get an apartment without conditions attached. yes but that he's

a lot of evidence that housing 1st works it works especially for homeless people we don't pick seats and homeless people that are chronically homeless so i don't think we have to further doubts about its effectiveness the scientific evidence is there what we need to do now he's to do is promote the scientific evidence and help convince policymakers that look at the national level to be housing 1st to skate i'm not trying to argue don't need traditional way or dressing homelessness by making homeless people bus to a shelter to the system is totally ineffective but it's very clear that housing 1st is more effective people keep housing people feel better and once you know that and yes people are doing better so there is no doubt the housing 1st works especially for chronically homeless people frank spinner went from the european federation of national organizations working with the homeless thank you very much thank you quite often are. i'm to hand you over to our science correspondent derrick williams

he's been looking into your questions on the growth virus. and 19th of 5 is like me protected to some extent from a infection with the new variant. the answer to this worrisome question is still up in the air but it's clearly something authorities will be keeping a close eye on in the coming months and what makes things complicated is that the pandemic of landscape is shifting so rapidly we're trying to track the effects of vaccines in multiple variants across societies but even nailing down exactly which variant might have affected someone somewhere is still much more the exception than the rule even in the u.k. which does a better job of tracking this kind of data than any other country they've only sequenced viral genomes from around 10 percent of all infected patients which means

we only know in one out of about 10 cases which variant a british patient had and in most other countries we know a whole lot less than that. one thing that's fueled concerns about the possibility of survivors being really infected with new variants is some results from a recent vaccine trial in south africa although it was set up to provide information about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine the trial incidentally revealed something kind of frightening in the placebo group subjects' who had antibodies indicating that they'd already had over 1000 once seemed just as likely to contract the disease again in the course of the study as people who haven't had it one possible explanation for that is that the variant discovered in. south

africa is less likely to be prevented by a naturally occurring immunity to earlier variants but that still hasn't been proven and the data set was too small to draw firm conclusions the upside however is that even if 3 infection with the new variant does occur many experts think that one run in with the disease should generally continue to provide some protection maybe enough to prevent severe disease with a newer variant that's the hope at least. and we leave you with rio's some but drug which is empty this year after the city suspended convolve due to the pandemic of course at the massive parade ground is being put to other uses like a slide show one of victims of the fires brazil has the 2nd highest number of covered deaths in the walt. dances with one of the city's somebody schools also put

on a socially distanced as displayed to cheer on the country's vaccination campaign. joy thanks for watching stay safe and see you again say. thank. you to.

take. frank frank in on the ride. also claims against. morning. split the chain around. and minds with. respect to plant team in the league how it's leverkusen to a shot by scoring to the last minute goal. and 39 t. w. . when they leave their communities cut off from everything family and

friends and their heritage their only orthodox jews. younger inherence in particular are searching for meaning outside of these regions down there is a project in germany is helping them to build new models making new friends. close up. 90 minutes on t.w. . by calling me old and done games did you know that 17 trillion land of the muslims are killed worldwide sure so that we can. but it's not just be animals of all suffering it's the environment we went on a journey to find ways out of the nutrition if you want to know how a weightlifter the priests and the whole trust changed as we think of this listen

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this is deja vu news live from berlin and mars military leaders say they won't hand back power after new elections but fears are growing that the quintiles will resort to a pilot to crack down we asked the un special envoy on bandar what the consequences for the one test would be. also coming up how china tries to silence dissent beyond its borders a weaker businessman tells us he was forced to spy on his own people while traveling abroad and scribe's the tragedy of. hungary welcomes its 1st.