the u.s. wants to take back economic leadership u.s. treasury secretary janet yellen has called for won't global cooperation and hamann ised minimum corporate tax rate across the world's major economies also coming up a major blockage of one of the world's most crucial shipping routes is forcing logistics companies to rethink their strategy. and how lockdowns in the philippines have given rise to a growing poor make coffee sector. alone welcome to the business of monica johnson

berlin good to have you with us and america 1st must never mean america alone that is what janet yellen said in her 1st major speech as u.s. treasury secretary in it she called for a global minimum corporate tax rate for companies that work internationally and former presidents donald trump had rejected such efforts fearing that it would put u.s. companies in a worse position the biden administration on the other hand is seeking a compromise solution within the framework of the negotiations of the organization for economic cooperation and development the republicans still warn that high of corporate tax rates would prompt companies to leave the united states in response to such fierce yellen insists a harmonized corporate tax rate across the world's major economies would make moving away less of an option is what she had to say. another consequence of an interconnected world has been

a 30 year race to the bottom on corporate tax rates competitiveness is about more than how u.s. headquarters come headquartered companies ferry gainst other companies in global merger and acquisition pits it's about making sure that governments have stable tax systems that really is sufficient revenue to invest in essential public goods and respond to crises and that all citizens fairly share at the burden of financing government. well for more i'm joined now by spending it all she's a member of the european parliament and chairman of the green group in the committee on economic and financial policy good to have you with us. i happen to know that to germany and france are among those countries that have long called for a more harmonized approach is yellen is proposed global corporate tax rates the answer to your press. well it's clearly music to my ears and the

turnaround from the old trump policies and one has to keep in mind that it was america which forced automatic information exchange between euro speeches as the main tool against tax evasion of private individuals in our america is paving the way for a global agreement on corporate profits and the race to the bottom and i think europe should respond forcefully and say let's take the 21 percent which america will use as the turnips if minimum tax rate for u.s. companies and their business of brought as the global benchmark writer but then the one percent the by an administration level to buy an administration as i understand wants to raise that to 28 percent so i mean who is going to decide the benchmark

of this harmonized global tax rate what would be the appropriate rate. excuse me these are 2 different rates so america wants to have its own tax rate to 20 were 8 percent but if american companies do business abroad there will be the so-called djibouti rate and that is the rate which are supplied to the profits outside of the us and that. biden wants to increase to 21 percent and my proposal is not that on the level of the g 20 where the biggest myth states in the world negotiate this should be the european proposal let's take the american 21 percent and use it as a global minimum tax rate and this could fly and also and the business of tax havens outside of europe as well as in europe what what did european and especially as the german companies operating globally benefit from that to all would that sort

of diminish their competitiveness but most german companies like most european companies will profit because at the moment they are under unfair tax competition they pay local borate while some global companies they have the possibility to shift their income to taxing so the equal competition between local trade us and amazon will come to an end and that is great news for most european business and it of course it sounds wonderful but it sounds almost like a fairy tale and we certainly seen a lot of national action lately are also with the vaccination programs is that such an ambitious goal actually realistic. independence now it's in the hand of european ministers of finance and heads of state so all of shorts there and a limb in and his colleagues in italy's poland spain should grass be opportunity

and tell america thank you for that move this is the moment we were waiting for it we will take your 21 percent and we will support it as basis for global deal if they make that move we have a chance that this will become policy very soon because the public budgets are everywhere globally we simply need a month ok when gold their member of the european parliament there without quite positive reaction if i interpret that correctly to janet yellen proposal there thank you so much for your time in pleasure. meanwhile in germany calls for stricter pandemic restrictions are getting louder but how much longer can businesses actually survive the lock down experts warn that 2021 could see a wave of bankruptcies and call for new pandemic strategies. after

more than 7 decades in business munich's oldest carpet store is the latest german retailer to fall prey to the pandemic as authorities struggle to contain a new wave of corona virus infections shops hotels and restaurants across the country are facing the same fate economists say a change of approach is needed to prevent more businesses from going under. i think what we need is indeed new ways of containing dependent it's not a question of opening up it's a question of allowing more freedom under very controlled conditions and think the business is ready to implement the things that they have prepared over many months we should try and be confident that you know companies are able to deal with the challenges and i think there are. some cities are trying systems that allow people

to visit shops and museums after getting a negative test result with hygiene rules mask wearing and social distancing still applying but so far the results have been mixed. more than 400 vessels were backed up after the giant container ship ever given run aground to the suez canal blocking the busy waterway the vessel has eventually been freed but the question remains how sustainable on global supply routes. entering the port of rotterdam europe's largest port is already much busier than usual there is no time to relax areas have to be cleared for about 60 ships that were stuck in the suez canal traffic jam they're expected to arrive here almost simultaneously in the coming days it cut off when working extra shifts night shifts to to process the enormous amounts of containers that are about to arrive on the many have to divert

to neighboring poured such as a butcher or antwerp due to the lack of births and cranes that would be needed in rotterdam to unload all the ships of the same time i think this will have a major logistical impact on the entire global logistical chain and not just not just our ports but all western european ports and probably also worldwide the trade journal lloyd's list estimates that costs of the suez canal blockage are more than 340000000 euros and triggered a shortage of containers experts are now rethinking the worldwide logistics industry. and important alternative is the new route from china via rail to europe to do spur sheena not it open and that is that is another possibility for the future would be the expansion of the arctic ocean route to comes to the days before sea at the pole routed compared to the established route through the suez canal the voyage along the russian northern coast would be about 7000 kilometers

shorter which means it would be faster and cheaper but that route hasn't been fully developed yet and it's really ice free all year around the safest way to transport goods at the moment is by rail the route is only 11000 kilometers and its final destination in duisburg germany by train can make the journey in 13 days wears a ship takes 49 days and it will be weeks before the suez canal traffic jam has cleared up. when corona lockdowns came into force a year ago in the philippines the hospitality industry came to a halt overnight and many young filipinos lost their jobs but in a strange twist this has given rise to a growing gourmet coffee sector some home brew us and are trying their handed having their own home based coffee businesses or coffee pops in the area. it's saturday afternoon on a popular food strip in manila 21 year old stephenville ina has turned his

motorbike into a makeshift curbside coffee bar calling it c. cup coffee seek up means effort in tagalog the linda has been doing this with his partner and her friend since december last year as an advocacy for local coffee farmers and also making a profit out of it. i wanted to make a bet with in one day make it up down. here. but i've been working there. temporary by bring me full if you have been. dying to have a farmer. he's part of a growing independent coffee culture despite being a coffee producing country the philippines is predominantly an instant coffee market that is changing from the grassroots level to facebook group coffee home brew is only had a few 100 members before the pandemic now it has over 24000. former

coffee chain barista john santos and a friend are among hundreds of new startups tapping into that market they started selling homemade bottled brews under the name resonate coffee then they set themselves up near an area of east manila that's popular with cyclists santa says doing curbside coffee pop ups has been a learning experience. it feels different when customers are mainly interested in the coffee itself when you're in the streets it's not 100 percent certain that the ambiance is nice it's not 100 percent of the weather's going to be good nor 100 percent that you'll have seating but if they like your coffee they'll keep coming back. santos had always dreamed of starting up his own coffee shop but he never imagined that the pandemic would give him the chance he was waiting for. and here's

a reminder of our top story this hour america 1st must never be in america alone that's what janet yellen said as her 1st major speech as u.s. treasury secretary in it she called for a global minimum corporate tax rate for companies that work internationally. is your business update for me in the team and belittle. the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. has the rate of infection been developing what does the latest research say. information and context the coronavirus update 19 special next on t w. how does a virus spread. why do we panic and when will all this and trying to just through the cracks and we couldn't read your blog. if you would like and new

information on the chrono laroche or any other science topic you should really check out our podcast you can get it wherever you get your podcast you can also find us at d.f.w. dot com one slash science. problem in society we have at the moment everyone is afraid of making what may happen if we don't do. the pandemic has changed life as we know it. but what comes next. will a fast paced logs pick up again. who we continue to innovate regardless of the cost. live

lines profit driven. and globally connected. or has this pandemic sparked irreparable change. how will we live in the future after the pandemic. hello and welcome to detail his covert 900. 11 this week we're peeking ahead imagining life after the cove in 1000 pandemic our guest today is richard sennett he's a british american sociologist and one of the world's most important theorists of urban studies or the architecture and social life of cities said it is currently a member of the council of urban initiatives for united nations habitat and since the beginning of the outbreak he's written about his concerns for city life amid growing pandemic restrictions. professor senate welcome to the show you describe

the city as a settlement in which strangers are likely to meet one another there hasn't been a whole lot of that lately given the pandemic as vaccines come online and more people are vaccinated are you optimistic that the city will come back. indeed i think it has to come back because. in the long term we need. places where people can interact face to face we need economically we need dense cities for the sake of climate change and merely ration is not an option for people to live long term socially distance lodz professor we talk about cities of course we talk about the architecture of a city as one thing and we also talk about social interactions or look 1st at the architecture what could this mean for how cities are planned in terms of i think of open spaces for example elevators that are probably being avoided now more than

ever when you see. well i think long term this argues just as climate change for much more flexible ways of building cities. to not make spaces which can only be used in one way it might be that the age of the skyscraper is over. or they were going to have to rethink public transport but it say about both the issue is is how to think about adaptable spaces not to transform these spaces in a place that was or stricken by sheer. in which see. in which the extremes of social isolation. to which the tattling against

us are going to lead to permanently socially isolated spaces it's a question of experiment. spacing people out in public transportation. figuring different ways to use elevators and so on it's trivial the horrible thing would be to freeze the environment and talk about the social interactions that make up a city as well you mention as well that face to face interaction do you think a pandemic has always made us more aware of our social connections the social capital that we have and then a life. you knew a man and a life spent. but kind of what kind of human experience that would be. you know this is the nurse it's what it when i'm saying you know the danger in this is that you natural as the extreme. that is to zoom or even working from home in isolation full time as

a norm can't do that it's a very soon me very. evocative. where we are today of what happened in new york 20 years ago you have to was hit by 911 almost immediately well the planning because in new york were rewritten as though every week another airplane would fly to new york skyscraper didn't happen but it decade the city was paralyzed and building these fortress like structures that's what we have to boyd. that kind paralysis and yet at the same time there is a real danger as we know from the virus so how do we find the right way of measuring the importance of our social lives with the real devastation that the virus can cause well.

this is just what. but there it's there we really have a problem with or virus was going to radically transform our lives look that way year ago no vaccines there are very few. drugs that could could treat people who are sick now or very different place. and i hope you in germany soon will be in their places well. where people who are vaccinated have a big weapon to use against the. militants which are coming on stream mean that if you even if you fall sick you're not doomed to die and so we're we need to change our consciousness. you know we have to take on board that this narrative has changed

what we think of when we use the term the virus is not a death sentence against very. redolent of the aids crisis in new york and 980 when the beginning of it people thought this was. gradually you know it became a chronic disease but many of the current practices that people were recommending in 1980 s. to deal with aids. were the notion that anybody who was touched by it was going to die and that became very very counterproductive in the long term. that i'm saying this to you know a very old 100 people supposed to be we mustered risk. from this virus but it just seems to me that i think being paralyzed with fear

is a horrible way to live. now that we don't need to be. paralyzed with fear we've got to move on mentally. and and think about ways to. to to live with it. rather than feel overwhelmed by. in britain i don't know how this is in germany but in britain you sell newspapers or social media. by and flaming the sense of fear even very very afraid it's overwhelming. that's good for journalism but it's not good for human beings. so i really see this is a moment where you've got to think it's going to be over for you i think it's i hope it will be over. it could i say one more thing about this for you. because threaded to. race in europe is that.

during the last year of the crisis could lead to the breakup of the european union it would be a tad airable long term. where nations think that you know the because the union largely failed failed you that it should be abandoned for really essential things go back to the nation state. so it would be a terrible way to as it were naturalized as state of emergency for the future free of. it you know so i just think it's very important to look forward rather than learning lessons from about her fingers the crisis is. out there for now richard thank you so much for joining us ok thank you. and now it's time

for your questions over to our science correspondent there. what impact has the pandemic had on the public perception of science this is the perfect question to start off this week's look at visions of the post coded world because one of the things the pandemic has done is radically change the way that many of you out there in the public view science and scientists some have turned into really famous figures who are no really well known not just in their home countries but all over the world germany also of course gained a few new science of leverage these in 2020 the most prominent of the viral a just in chief christiane dalston millions of germans tuned in for his regular

pandemic podcasts he's even been turned into a traditional christmas ornament so one wake up at 19 has certainly changed public perception of science is by dragging researchers and science experts out of the shadows they mostly worked and up until now and arresting them and their fields into center stage i mean i'm sure there are lots of kids here in germany now saying i want to grow up to be the next question to boston and if you ask me that's a great thing. derek williams there and around the world christians are celebrating easter one of the most important festivals on the christian calendar believe you now with a look at how the faithful celebrated during the global pandemic thanks for watching stay safe and also use one again.

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this is utopia news live from berlin and india is hit by a 2nd wave of the corona virus as new cases soar to almost 100000 for a 2nd day in a row state leaders call on prime minister narendra modi to open up the back to nations to more people. also coming out a call for a tougher longer lock down in germany ahead of on the back i'll see you party.