former syrian intelligence service said agents guilty of facilitating state sponsored torture in syria in the 1st trial of its kind the defendant was charged as an accomplice in the torture of opposition activists and. you're watching the news up next with your business headlines of women brought in for a way to look forward to. how does a virus spread. why do we panic and when we'll all risk. just through the text from cover and we couldn't read your blog. if you would like any information on the cloning virus or any other science topic you should really check out our podcast you can get it wherever you can get your podcast you can also find us and our team w dot com look for science. in

a puzzle is held up by a young it's not easy to go to another country you know nothing about the wife of i am do this because we can't stay on venezuela i know. that because sleep global news that matters d.w. made for martin's. view. fresh from polling itself out of a recession nigeria turns its attention to another and the problem in the country with the naming of a new anti-corruption chief will speak to our correspondent on the ground. signs of life in spain as shoppers hit the winter sales but once again it's smaller businesses that continue to struggle. and what has the pandemic taught us about the global food supply we hear from. an expert about how wealthy nations had seen new

vulnerabilities in going into last year. this is the business i'm joined in in berlin glad you can join us we start in spain where the beleaguered retail sector is finding some relief amid a surge of shoppers coming out for winter sales but smaller businesses are finding it hard to match big competitors discounts and many are even shutting their doors altogether. bargain fever instead of covert lockdown winter sales are attracting thousands of people to the center of. all the stores are open despite the fact that the region still has one of spain's highest infection rates. magic on them not on i agree with how it's being handled after all we need some distraction and if it's done responsibly and according to clear rules then i think it's all right now but if you are. intensive care units or at more than 150 percent

capacity hospitals are overcrowded people don't seem to realize that they act like everything is fine. and cortez ing grace europe's largest department store chain is also open the authorities only allow them to operate at 30 percent capacity but some departments are still crowded the company stresses that everything safe items of clothing for example are disinfected after each city. it's very important to us that customers feel safe shopping here. and according to department of health data if there are very few are virtually no coronavirus outbreaks in retail stores. but smaller stores in particular are suffering the most from the pandemic as many spaniards are still holding back on shopping posy on store saw his sales drop by more than 50 percent so far government aid has only

been available in the form of loans. now this is the. government is not giving out free money which is causing companies to go even deeper into debt. that businesses for many years or even drive them into bankruptcy. for rent signs can be seen all around. many store owners have shut down for good leading to the loss of more than. 50000 jobs throughout spain you know so i don't know what i'm going to hear in the clothing and fashion sector one in 5 stores is going out of business but if you don't well it's a very bad situation because in valencia smaller stores are very important for the regional economy as you no longer comment on one point of view. even with infection rates falling it's unclear whether the people of valencia will keep shopping one sales or over spaniards who are traditionally average shoppers have put more money

into savings than ever before. now there is some good news for those struggling businesses the spanish government has announced a new 11000000000 euro aid package to help small and midsize companies and the self-employed cope with the economic crisis but well developed countries are able to support the private sector via big aid packages and economic hardship many emerging economies with less public revenue have to look for alternatives like development finance i spoke to a different president of the european bank for reconstruction and development i asked her how best to finance countries out of a crisis. i think indeed we have focus all our friends in the to support our clients and they were countries of operation during the crisis and providing for example working capital for companies who lost revenue suddenly because of the lack of luggage on the they needed working capital to continue to be effective and to be able to rebound and that has proven very effective we have provided also some that

restructuring for a few months for companies that had difficulties to pay and support to vital infrastructure big infrastructure such as electricity companies railway companies companies that really were in trouble and that we supported accompanying their transformation during the crisis and also has proven very effective so there's been a wide range of activities but the e.p.a. already has also been criticized for failing to bring benefit to people in eastern europe and central asia for not doing enough to screen potentially environmentally damaging development projects that's according at least to one public finance monitor what do you say to that criticism. i mean we are very much one of the priority we have you know was tried to g. is to focus on climate we want to have 50 percent of our financing green financing in 20542025 what happened this year is in 2020 is because

of the acute crises and the need to provide the rapid relief to a number of clients and countries of the show of green finance has been reduced as a consequence of the things we were doing and there is an absence of project and so we are we are really within the end of that as a key priority for next year to increase again is this report for green finance and support of kind of project between new abor less energy efficiency measures and a green see jesus or this kind of project that we can support and that have a good positive impact on the climate and environment how are you going to ensure that this happens. i mean this is we have you know we have objective this is the objective we have said by our shareholders is our objective also that we defined for our bank goes to the people working in the bank and we put all our energy to

reach his objective of course i mean everything is not in. our responsibility we need to have projects that are. consistent with the subjective so that we do not create project we need to find a good good project willing to give it up it's kind of operation but what we are doing to create this business and of course is really have the group discussion being in touch with all the governments of all to support their defining polices that would be federal board to foster this kind of investment and finally about how do you keep your clients accountable. what we do when we have a project is we define that i mean we assess the impact does developments impact as a transition in fact as a project we do that exxon thing and we do that expose so we need to close the holes of project is implemented and how. it's effect for example if

we have a if you provide that financial resources to a bank condition that the bank will lend itself some money to support refinance or to soup or to women to print the sheets for example if we went into this implementation and that the best way to ensure that clients are going to warm thank you very much a day or an oboe so there for us she is the president of the european bank for reconstruction and development thank you for your time today thank you so much and speaking of growth and development africa's most populous country nigeria is no longer in recession nigeria's g.d.p. grew by a 10th of a percent last quarter beating the government's own estimates nigeria slipped into recession last year after a $12.00 punch of the coronavirus pandemic and falling oil prices nigerian officials say the early return to growth was due to the easing of its lock down and a gradual shift away from from its the pendants on oil production now widespread

corruption has long been a drag on the nigerian economy as well on wednesday nigeria's senate approved abdul rashid as the country's new anti-corruption chief. our correspondent joins us now why is how sustainable is this growth. what it is only sustainable if the government is able to continue with the it would agree culture of policy initiated which you did results. good policies trying to fight against corruption and then because they growth is from 2 major areas. from agriculture and from day

i.c.t. would you nuthin for nigeria because full solong would rely on oil as in the just false. move in growth in nigeria. and what more can tell us about. the new corruption chief. this is the 1st time we have been a young person who happens to be from the agency been employed in appointed as the chairman he is just 40 years and look at this petitions from him to be able to linda system because that agency was supposed to be fighting corruption happens to be in god in policy in the past the immediate past was removed because of corruption although up to rashid my night is young he has some inducting in which the agency denied so down to elect a pope that is a look of expectations from him linda area i see nigeria through the fight against corruption which has been

a challenge that has been right in nigeria in towns of economy in terms of the solution on political and economy grow. ok thank you very much g.w. correspondent there for us thank you for your analysis. food security is on the rise global poverty has been a crew increasing again in recent years despite the gains of past decades the pandemic is making things worse lockdowns and poor access to health care affect the poorest the most those already struggling to put food on the table here are the countries most affected by food insecurity according to the new global food security index yemen don zambia and malawi countries already facing economic and conflict situations and there is another major threat to world food supply climate change with droughts and natural disasters increasing around the world even wealthier european countries like denmark norway and sweden are seeing more

disruptions to their food supplies. katrina saying is project feed for the global food security index with the economic with the economist intelligence unit we asked her which countries were worst affected. one of the key findings of the index is that this is not really a developing economy issue out of our 113 countries in the index 66 so majority of the countries have actually seen a dip in affordability and like i said this is something because of lack of incomes and also a social safety nets and this is across different countries and economies so we've seen this inequality that i use not just we didn't nations but even internally within our not just across nations but even within a country we're seeing inequality increase and the well higher risk populations of honorable groups exponentially rise as a result of the pandemic. and finally british airport london heathrow incurred a 2 a 1000000000 pound loss for 2020 medical outs and air traffic during the pandemic

passenger numbers tumbled nearly 73 percent to around 22000000 a level not seen since the 1970 s. more than half of those travelers passed through in january and february last year before the pandemic. thanks for watching. the. opposition parties in pakistan have been upping the pressure on prime minister imraan khan in a series of recent mass protests they say that he is a puppet of the military and has mismanaged the economy as information spiral my guess is he from islamabad esol one choudhary pakistani minister for science and technology one houses are meant to achieve who's calling the shots in pakistan conflict. in 60 minutes.

and on demand. language courses. or. target area where. this is did every news africa on the program today. disputed election the opposition has staged protests across the country alleging that the poll was fraudulent and that their candidate won. and the fight over fish from kenya's lake now cooled the community battered by the effects of climate change saying it's a blessing but the government has banned its consumption. also in kenya turning pests into profit and stars have had.