city well face either chelsea or radiometer it. you're watching news just stay with us if you can coming up next my colleague stephen beardsley walks you through all the latest from the business world i'll be back again at the top of the hour i'm sara kelly in berlin thanks for watching take care. it's an ongoing quest for a bit of. the arab spring began in 2011. people stood up against corrupt rulers and dictatorship. all these moments. have left deep pockets in my memory.

they had hoped for more security more freedom more dignity. have their hopes been fulfilled. in years after the arab spring. rebellion starts june 7th on d w. used to spends its controversial investment deal with china there was no shortage of critics of the deal which failed to further open markets on both sides despite chinese abuses and sheen john and hong kong. also want to show strong results for siemens energy in the 2nd quarter to spin off from p.r. companies even doubling its profit. and tesla's expansion in europe hinges on its new plant near berlin look at efforts to get things moving after recent delays. hello and welcome to the show i'm stephen beardsley in berlin well the rocky road

to ratification just got rock. here the e.u. suspending its efforts to win approval for its massive investment deal with china after tit for tat sanctions were imposed over beijing's treatment of its weaker population european european commission president valdis dombrovskis saying future efforts ratify the deal depended on how broader in china relations of all investment pact was pushed through by german chancellor angela merkel in december but had been expected to face opposition in the european parliament. all right let's shift gears and go to the business world siemens energy doubled its profit in the 2nd quarter to almost 200000000 euros thanks to its wind turbine subsidiary the mesa now siemens energy secured major contracts for offshore wind farms in the u.k. the netherlands and france the company hoping to benefit from the new multibillion infrastructure program in the u.s. as well siemens energy's coal and gas fired power plants however did not do as well

as many countries shift towards more renewable energies the company was spun off from the german engineering giant siemens last year. are joining me now for more on this is maria ferraro she's c.f.o. of siemens energy maria good morning so good news it appears improvement considerable improvement over the 1st quarter for your company at the same time revenue down what should we make of these numbers. thank you stephen good morning yes we're very pleased with our 2nd quarter results we see a solid performance quarter over quarter for us at siemens energy in both the siemens khamees a renewable energy space and gas and power i think it's important to also think about the fact that this is behind a very challenging market environment orders are very solid actually almost 40 percent growth quarter over quarter we're very pleased with that you talked about revenue so revenue yes slightly declined on a reported basis but this is really if you exclude the currency translation

headwinds which we still feel almost $400.00 basis points then we're at par with last year what we're really pleased about is our income which over doubled for the group which was fantastic and as a c.f.o. you know i really think about cash in this was an incredible improvement quarter over quarter almost 700000000 better than quarter last quarter last year what about the scale back over time of these coal and gas power projects seumas energy has worked on what should we make of that is that a natural movement of the marketers or something to be concerned about. yes stephen you know we announced already in our 1st quarter that we're exiting pure production coal power plants and this is exactly what we're trying to do a siemens energy we're here to accompany our customers and the market through the energy transition and i think for us we can see that with our portfolio whether it's from our c o 2 reducing generation business all the way through transmission to renewables

we're well poised to look at all challenges and the coal production plant announcement that we made very proactively indicates this looking ahead one of those challenges a positive challenge could be the infrastructure package in the u.s. proposed right now it could come through what would that mean for energy's bottom line. i think looking ahead how one of the things that we did also is look at our outlook which we've confirmed stephen which was great from an avatar perspective 3 to 5 percent we are delivering on what we committed and we are very well positioned to meet our targets this year also looking at top line we reduced our revenue band from 2 to 11 to 3 to 8 percent for siemens energy that's wonderful if you're thinking about the u.s. and the biden administration like i said earlier we're well poised and we welcome any changes which a company and even further progress the energy transition we at siemens energy are

always happy to help their own right maria ferraro c.f.o. of the humans energy which reported a doubling of profits in the 2nd quarter from the 1st thank you very much for joining us. thank you stephen take care stay healthy all right let's go over to china now we're tech giant baidu has stepped up the competition to be the 1st commercially viable pe driverless taxi service with the launch of such a robo taxi in beijing here's a look. beijing taxi drivers are famous for their banter how would a robot compete. here in beijing show got to find out a fleet of 10 driverless apollo robo taxis pick up and drop off passengers at 8 stops. tech firm baidu better known as the search engine on a robot car operator has staged autonomous driving demonstrations before but this is the 1st time that no one is behind the wheel although a safety monitor is sitting in the front passenger seat in case of emergency the driverless taxi operations are in a park on the side of

a former steel plant to avoid beijing traffic hailing a robot taxi straightforward passengers call a cab and the apollo go up then scan the health code the taxi only moves after detecting passengers and fasten their seatbelts. when driving we've all had experiences like other cars jumping ahead in the queue or changing lanes suddenly people have emotions why robots don't at least for now maybe the robots won't be able to calculate and deal with the emotion changes. to get out. by do plans to expand the apollo go robo taxi service to 30 cities in the next 3 years. or i do to be a correspondent when you lead joins me from taipei for more on this good afternoon to you in taipei when you we know that baidu has trials this autonomous service in multiple cities before what makes this beijing operation different. so far the house being tested is. driving scenes in 3 chinese cities already

and including the capital beijing but this time unlike the free charles baidu is now charging around for a pariah in is the 1st time that there is no terrorist sitting behind us here in quail however the controller will be standing in the from passengers state to make sure there is no emergency if they miss thing happens but is also worth noting that the robotic texas service is running a was also available and beijing so show gone park which is one of the venue of the 2022. winter olympics so we can now really see that they provide a service at that time and for athletes and staff so that how as why does a brush and to further of self driving cars should we see this as a perv a broader shift to autonomous in china or is this still sort of more of

a novelty kind of thing going on here. so the company has low invested and as driving technology platform since 2017 is actually not surprising for baidu to invest in car making things a lot of investors are looking at this area and also if we look at it as partnership was a car making company earlier this year we can see by just him to have a really great commitment to the automobile business you know when you we also know that by do his work closely with julie which is owned by which owns volvo should say would have been working on his partnership a bit lucky with electric cars. so this was the partnership i was talking about so they started this partnership sings earlier this january. days the former election vico venture called of j g 2 otoh as john ari

and you don't know now if that is going to end those 6400000000 euros 6 to manufacture electric cars over the next 5 years it also plans to hire up to $3000.00 staff including software engineers we can also say that if i do would be responsible for is so where technology and the car making company of course is going to help make cars so the commonest running charge into a cell array the pace of his car manufacturing and if alone as 1st electric cars in 3 years it would definitely help to showcase. just the technologies or when you'll be in taipei with a look at china thank you very much thank you all right let's go back to europe the tesla plant near berlin is that a standstill not long ago it was said that the 1st cars would be built this july the new date is january of next year so what's going on what does it mean for

teslas plans to expand throughout europe. tesla's new plant is under construction here just outside berlin this fire safety contractor is excited to be allowed onto the site. is my 1st time here we got a call because they're having some difficulties they want us to take a look at argo which is what was once the plant is almost finished but it still doesn't have the necessary permits a sign of the snail's pace of german bureaucracy if it were told i think it's sad actually officials in germany need to be a bit quicker and in cases like this push things through if we're going to get something innovative like this we need to adapt a bit and move things along as one person. for now though things appear to be at a standstill the addition of a huge battery factory next to the car plant means yet another round of approvals and permits the site was planned to open in july officials now say cars won't be

rolling off the production line here until at least january of next year the model why earmarked for production at the new factory is key to tesla's growth strategy. model i will. any and i will. probably next year it's an optimistic forecast but car experts say the race for dominance in the e-car market is far from over especially in europe. and why does he get all these classic automakers are building electric vehicles these days folks wagon is moving full speed ahead. that means the competition has become very very steep. one car buyers here are more likely to turn to the tried and trusted brands. that will make it harder for tesla to grow in europe. you know. locals near the new

plant are watching closely to see what happens next environmentalists are worried the plant is located inside a water conservation area the local economy though is in need of a growth spurt the population here has declined for years as people move away for work. take. the high tech automotive industry means more industrial jobs they need all sorts of industrial suppliers the plant will attract service providers and that's an opportunity for mid-size companies to fill orders and take part in the project this specialist is also hoping the factory will bring him business to now he's visited the gigafactory for the 1st time he's hopeful he can secure a contract with the american e-car maker. and finally for those with a little spare change and some wall space to fill christie's is holding its spring sale next week its focus on 20th century art featuring works from picasso and

rothko all the way to banksy highlight however is a magnificent head painting but show michelle busk out that's expected to fetch more than $50000000.00. all right that's it for me and the business to watch. diversity on our fields is under threat as more and mostly divides them up. monocultures keep spreading to the detriment of our health and that's our ecosystem . how can we preserve and disseminates traditional themes and cooperative in ecuador is leading the way global 3000. next on t w. what secrets lie behind this one. discover

new adventures in 360 degree. and explore fascinating world heritage sites. w world heritage 363 getting out now. only. welcome to global 3 thousands. access to clean water is a basic human right but what if it's not readily available we hear about one solution from uganda. the winds of change how traditional oil loving texans are seeing green and renewable energy sources. but 1st we reap what we sow.