stories. make up your. job made for mines. germany's biggest corporate scandal under investigation and paula measure inquiry committee presents its findings on how crash servos car service provider why their car could continue to do business supporting 2000000000 euros in assets that didn't exist also coming up after the most recent cyber attacks against microsoft the us government is coming under pressure over what to do against these attacks and 2 months after the u.k. left the single market irish truckers find a way to get to europe gets around the paper well and.

i'm for scoble welcome to the program fraud fell so fine financial documents and money laundering all of this at a dax listed company last june the dealings of wire card came to light the german payment service provider went bankrupt after executives admitted that almost 2000000000 euros in assets were likely nonexistent since then many have been asking how could this have been happen today a parliamentary inquiry committee is presenting some of their findings. to the outside world it was a successful dacs group but in reality it was riddled with fraud behind it clean for sod criminals were at work former c.e.o. marcus braun is currently in custody asia board member yanmar select is a fugitive. wire card was once an electronics payments service provider and even

operated a bank in germany but it turns out some sales were completely made up the balance sheet showed a 1900000000 euro hole sense then public prosecutors began investigating the company on commercial fraud and document falsification charges. there had been rumors for years media outlets repeatedly reported inconsistency is but each year the auditing firm gave wire card a seal of approval the german financial regulator boffin didn't investigate the allegations either quite the opposite journalists who reported on fraudulent dealings at wire card received complaints. sence october a parliamentary investigative committee has been scrutinizing the role of the authorities in this scandal but one thing is certain germany's financial supervisors are ready for reforms. one of the heads of this inquiry committee is

fabio demasi he's a member of the german parliament to start for the left party and he joins me now welcome to g.w. fabia what is your most important finding in this investigation of. well our most important finding is that multiple state agencies failed to do their job properly while there were individuals that had warned those agencies so there was a kind of collective attitudes to to close close eyes and we also found that the german government was quite active actually in china in the context of the german chinese financial dialogue to lobby for why a card a lot of political personalities had been lobbying for walk out and just to give you one example some of the supervisors those that we're supposed to ask tough questions of the cut where actually trading choose instead of doing their job.

so do you think that is one of the biggest problems here that state actors have been financially involved when. well that's part of the story that some people in the supervision agencies where trading in those stocks and that we didn't have proper rules in germany in place to prevent this kind of insider trading for example in the financial. supervision authority but on the other hand we know that all those. decisions that have been taken like the short selling ban. we approved by the ministry or at least have been notified in the german ministry of finance so there's also the question on political responsibilities and it was chancellor merkel who indeed the most powerful man in china for why. do not simply go to china just because her

former economic minister gutenberg who was a lobbyist for why account told her so but this was a decision that has been taken in the german government because like why it was one of the key assets in a german chinese financial dialogue and the german government has to answer why they did not react to the reporting of the financial times so this are bored out of the scandal rather has moved germany's federal financial watchdog and of the crosshairs it has a staff of 2700 but reportedly there are only 5 people who are licensed auditors do you see signs that the overhaul of the watchdog as a result of the scandal are going into the right direction. well we have some minor improvements now for example we had a 2 tier approach so 1st we had kind of like a privately government organization that was supposed to check balance sheets and

they had also multiple conflict of interests but for example the so-called d p r which comes prior to the financial supervision watched by often when it comes to checking the accuracy of balance sheets they actually asked even wired to equip them with arguments why they should not investigate fraud so you could see a lot of collusion of interests here but indeed the problem is the primary problem is that the german french was a provisional authority only has those 5 people who are even able to to audit companies and debts in saying that's like if the german police would basically go to formula one or to the october fast and bavaria and tell them to examined you know like alcohol controls on the german road deaths that's not possible and so you need state agency that is able to do its job it needs the best people in the market

and it needs tough people who ask the right questions probably the mozzie member of the parliamentary inquiry committee into the wild card scandal thank you for your thoughts. thanks a lot for having the recent cyber attack on microsoft's email servers is putting pressure on the u.s. government the 2nd major hack in a matter of months as led to calls for the united states to reality retaliate or lose protections for cyberspace now the full impact of the latest attack blamed on china is still yet to become clear it's relentless the number of cyber attacks being carried out around the world takes up by the 2nd for those charged with finding them and shutting them down he's a busy times. we have about $550.00 folks on the ground responding to breaches right now and i'm not sure because it's ever been worse for the amount of work that

we have the recent cyber attack on microsoft's exchange service is believed to have affected upwards of 30000 organizations in the u.s. including businesses and governments they've been left vulnerable to data breaches through so-called back door was created during the hack a trademark analysts say the chinese hackers that put this secret door in every single house in the neighborhood kind of thing and that's what they did here the back door that they put in place is exceptionally consistent with the chinese threat actors this latest attack from overseas follows last year's massive solar winds hack blamed on russia back then joe biden called for action we can't let this go to answer that means making clear and publicly who is responsible for the attack in taking meaningful steps to hold them accountable now that he's president it's his chance to act the question is how insider if you really assess the domain the

united states is actually not rude winning right now in my opinion if we hack back it's like being in the glass house rocks at a mud hut if cyber spies the wrong to mate right now to exert force in $88.00 and me to do some force but i will figure about the policy alliances economics the work carried out by online security firms shows the threat posed by cyber espionage is only increasing nations like the us a still working out how to defend their economies and themselves in a heck of a dominated world. and now to some of the other global business stories making news pacific says it made a loss of $2800000000.00 during 2020 the hong kong based airline was hammered by the collapse of international travel brought on by the pandemic it's described last year as the most challenging 12 months in its history

a new associated press survey shows 4 out of 10 americans are feeling the financial impact of the loss of job or income within their household because of the pandemic those low paid and unskilled jobs have seen the biggest cuts to their. here in europe it's a good 2 months now since a huge trading rules stopped applying to britain importers next voters on either side of the english channel are still getting to grips with bragg's it and what it means for them a closer look reveals that trade between dover and kalai is bearing signs of change . since the start of the year the patrol boats of the french port of share bore have been extra busy the number of gigantic freight ferries arriving going to leaving here has tripled. almost all the new traffic through the ports is either going to or coming from the republic of ireland and all because of brics it appears why. before the u.k. left the e.u.

the standard route for road freight from olland to get to france was to go via the u.k. and head to cali but new paperwork brought on by persons exit from the single market in january has made that journey a lot less simple so many irish truckers are cutting the u.k. out of the equation and taking the c. route direct to share board e.u. member state to even member state so it's practical it's always there and why did you turn to easier their spare for. too much hassle and what cost them is a clearance and. when it really was only milk here it was because with no. success and the porter share who is more than happy to oblige near the said we crossing takes 17 hours we have all the equipment needed to welcome the company's. ships in. there because. he's

also welcoming boats from england but they're far from full and the drivers who arrive have a very different experience to those coming from ireland with long waits at customs that. can be one hour maybe 3 days. teams are. doing what they can to help you go back in maybe 1015 minutes but with alan's holy is finding ways to cut together the bricks the bricks the only ones forging a new path. and finally contact shopping that's the big trend nowadays in retail not least because of the coronavirus with customers trying to move fast and without touching anything or anyone in our retail technology trade show in tokyo shows what the industry has to offer up to an entirely on manned store system making use of a robot customers items. moves around the store to

pick them up. fair enough kenned replace the checkout i think that's a whole thanks for watching for more. business thanks for watching. the final against the coronavirus tend to make. the rate of infection been developing. the latest research say. information and contacts. virus update. on t.w. . how does a virus spread. through the town. and. if you would like any

information on the crown of. science topic you should really check out our. podcast you can also find us at. science. open shops and not that many mosques sweden's approach to cope at 19 is radically different it's relied on people taking personal responsibility to contain the virus instead of strict lockdowns. but sweden now has one of the highest transmission rates in europe only its well funded health care system and sparse population have stock debts rocketing to the levels of italy or britain. now stockholm has become a haven for young people from other countries a scaping lockdowns. is there anything we can learn from the swedish way.

as a question alaska daughter of one of europe's largest university hospitals in stockholm in a moment 1st let's take a closer look at how the relaxed swedes have been approaching the pandemic the government has drawn both international praise and criticism for its decision to stay open during the crisis and not all swedes are convinced the country took the right path. at 1st glance this looks like life before the pandemic friends hugging each other and going on a shopping spree in stockholm you're allowed to do this sweet and hasn't imposed a lockdown instead authorities rely on people to use common sense and these young people see this as an invitation to come visit corey maher says he came from ireland 2 months ago to enjoy life and quickly found like minded people. feels good to get a coffee or feel. the train without being accosted by possible

police members or possible security teams it feels good to be a lot of other feels good to be like existing a young person should be existing you know many of the other guests in the stockholm hostel agree they've come here from across europe from italy france and germany many are fleeing the covert 1000 restrictions in their homelands. right here as we discovered that was full of other ones like me but there was you know what from the same results will simply continue to be alive and they live in rooms like this with 8 beds and no windows for weeks at a time linda came here after graduating from high school. when i came here a week and a half ago and saw people in restaurants talking and eating together normally without masks i thought i was dreaming. on the other hand i can't forget what it's like in germany right now. sweden has both mandatory and voluntary restrictions

residents who can are asked to stay home there's a ban on serving alcohol in the evening and masks are only recommended during rush hour there have been more than 12000 covert 1000 deaths in a population of 10000000 this is left some doubtful when 82 year old krista anderson fell ill doctors refused to give him intensive medical care but after pressure from his daughter he received treatment over some. i wondered if this really is the right way to go why are we doing this it's not working. we know that young people can spread this disease and the whole thing is far from over it will keep us busy for some time to come but corey mars enjoying the freedom of the swedish way like going to a cafe or a bar it's something the irishman no longer wants to do without so he can't imagine returning home anymore instead he's looking for a job that will allow him to extend his stay in sweden. university hospitals dr

chris joins us from stockholm sweden as we heard in that report it came down to the door his decision as to her father's treatment but you say it should be a medical decision not to the relatives. well yeah well 1st of all i would like to say that i'm very happy that everything ended well with this family and it's very difficult for me to comment on a specific case like this but there are some general aspects of intensive care that i would like to comment on with respect to problems that have occurred during the pandemic as you alluded to in your questions deciding all who are treated in what level of care and so in this based on medical considerations of course usually the decisions are made on in a multidisciplinary team where several physicians together decide what's best in terms of treatment for the specific patient the question that we're trying to address and when discussing this is what will benefit the patient the most and

sometimes subjecting an individual to intensive care is considered worth the try and meaning that the expected outcome will outweigh the risks that the treatment will expose them to in the context of intensive care this means that. they have a good chance of surviving intensive care and returning to life with a reasonable quality of life if the team reaches that conclusion. that suggesting the patient intensive care will increase suffering and not have the sought after consequence meaning survival they will decide not to move the patients to intensive care primarily because it would be unethical to increase suffering with without any hope of survival so as you understand these decisions are extremely difficult and we include relatives in this discussion to make sure that they understand the reasoning behind the decisions but we never ask them to make these decisions since

that cycle stress of having to do so and if it would be to have a so yes it's a medical decision and they need to do what's best for the patient in the long run so tell me how are things going in sweden with this 3rd wave now hitting. well where it varies a lot throughout 3 them in some regions the spread is increasing while in others the situation is under control here in stockholm where i am right now we're seeing an increase in the larger proportion of tests positive of all test during the last 2 weeks and was see a worrying influx of patients to the hospital but we are nowhere near the levels of hospitalized patients that we saw during the 1st and 2nd wave and we also are beginning to see a positive effect of the vaccinations mortality from combat this definitely decreasing among those who have been most severely history ring the 1st and 2nd wave that is individuals who are older and who live and literally care facility for

nomics really happy about that but at the same time i worry about the pressure on the health care system building up again so tell me did sweden take the right approach in your opinion so what we did was in line with the swedish preparedness plan for influenza pandemics that we had in place before the pandemic to convert pandemic and it was approved by our parliament some time before the congress pandemic and it kind of sets the basis for how to deal with this situation and we never enforced suppression. from the start we've approached a virus with efforts to mitigate this effect for sexing risk groups and making sure that the health care system would suffice and be able to function that's accessible level for all have care needs including cancer and my colleague or function as well so the 2nd thing to understand this i feel sorry to say since day one emphasize the need for public health interventions that are sustainable. and we need to induce

changes in behavior in public in the public that people would be able to keep up for a long long time just to briefly answer the question if i believe we have approached a polemic correctly i would said yes i don't think suppression would have been say simple given the fact that the interventions needed to reach suppression would have been associated with too high risks for us as individuals and for society overall marie just briefly what can other countries one from sweden do you think ha. i wouldn't even think about extending recommendations to any other nation we all do what we can to deal with this extremely difficult situation i'm now you wish and hope that we all will be able to look back on this awful time extract what we need to be better prepared and i hope that we together. can form a plan on how to deal with pandemics in the future and that we do so with

a more global perspective and come passing you know all parts of the world and our response to the real increase thank you very much for being on the show today joining us there from still have sweden. italy was home to a critical hot spot at the height of the pandemic 1st wave a year on and despite strict lock downs over 100000 people have now died from code across the country the british variant of the very virus is spreading there at what doctors call an alarming rate the mutation now accounts for nearly 18 percent of all cases and could soon become dominant experts say italy's hospitals could be overwhelmed again. let's get you over to our science correspondent there equal ems he's been fielding your questions on the coronavirus. why is the mortality rate for europe and north america so much higher than in asia . after the 1st few months of 2020 most east asian countries got

their pandemic problems pretty well under control and they've largely stayed that way to try to answer this i 1st checked the numbers which even if you take into account a lot of unknowns and discrepancies are quite striking there really are huge differences between consonance all told there have been around 10 times more deaths in europe and the americas than in asia although more than 3 times as many people live on the world's largest continent him we don't know why but as always there are some interesting theories on east asian countries in particular have largely avoided the worst ravages i think there's no question that that success is due at least in part to wide acceptance of strict social measures when necessary

but that some researchers think that can't explain all of the disparity one intriguing hypothesis is that historically east asia might simply be an error. of the world where respiratory viruses like sars could be 2 are more common in the environment so so spillover and minor outbreaks with novel pathogens like it happen they are more often but but go unnoticed those events would however according to the theory lead to higher levels of resistance and populations against those kinds of pathogens in general lowering disease severity for many people when a big outbreak event occurs that idea is pretty controversial and it's really really hard to prove and since we know that mass wearing contacts racing and and target hard lockdowns work many experts still give most of the credit for the lower

death tolls in east asia in particular to those kinds of measures. there are programs there i'm bent as all and thanks for watching stay safe and see you again sir.

are we about to run dry. in the water the. water is very big business and it's getting worse gas. what do we have to do not to high and dry. do we have to rethink the water industry. made in germany. w.

africa. the last 2 northern white rhinos in the world are grazing here in kenya but wait this lady this is your last chance to reap. so b.j. . scientists are trying to stream this b.c. and they have a whole lot of ideas about how to do it. eco africa. 90 minutes on t w. more than a 1000 years ago europe witnesses a huge construction boom. christianity from established itself. both religious and secular leaders or eager to display their power.

to trace begins. who can create the tallest biggest and most beautiful structures. stone masons builders and architects compete with each other. this is how massive churches are created. a. contest of the cathedrals flame the 12th on d. w. .

od. this is g w news live from berlin shots fired on protests in myanmar as calls for restraint go on heard the military crackdown continues and pro-democracy protesters keep marching across the country the u.n. security council wrestles with how to respond to the one tells us forces. also coming up should german lawmakers join the list of politicians around the world accused of profiteering from the coronavirus it is another blow to chancellor angela merkel's once shining reputation as a crisis manager during a pandemic.