questions of the world trade organization are expected to take months. that's it you're up to date on world news of the top. do will start to decrease business update in just a matter of the day. 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 box in my memory. they had hoped for more security more freedom more dignity. of their hopes one from several. years ago after the arab spring. valley and starts june 7th on d w. a welcome step india and south africa described american support for waiving patent protection on code 19 vaccine but industry groups argue with throwing out intellectual property rights hurt vaccination efforts. also on the show the pandemic compounds existing struggles in africa like the lack of. energy access.

this is the business i'm to now the berlin so happy you can join us the e.u. says it's willing to discuss a w t o proposal to temporarily suspend intellectual property rights for covert 900 vaccines a day after the us said it supported the measure the proposal is meant to speed up the slow rate of global vaccinations that's welcome news for countries like south africa and india who have been pushing for the move but it's as the pharmaceutical industry. while much of the rich world continues to ramp up vaccination rates developing countries remain at the mercy of the virus in india thousands are dying each day from covert 19th the country desperately needs vaccines for its huge 1400000000 population. last october it brought a proposal to the w t o along with south africa for patients rights to be temporarily suspended for pandemic related medical products such as vaccines president biden's backing gives

the proposal a chance of becoming reality in theory it could lead to copy conversations of approved vaccines being in bands that supply boosting vaccination rates all over the world. he's a step in the right direction and we believe that when they used to have this plan that he is reaching. he's to remember to move to convert a u.s. government that's doing the right thing at the right time to fight. challenge which is unprecedented you know. contemporary history is. the move has prompted anger from the pharmaceutical industry. on the other hand it's worth saying that governments such as germany such as the united states have paid a lot of money for this research and that only a small sliver of pharmaceutical companies profits come from lower income countries . months of negotiations could lie ahead for the w t o to agree upon

a specific waiver plan but the us decision has already seen shares in vaccine makers such as be on tech and madonna fall sharply. and now e.u. commission president and airline says europe is ready to discuss the proposed waiver from cape town i am joined by d.w. correspondent. good to see you address what's the response there been like well most people i talked to today expressed happiness there where basically relief that it's finally happened as you said rightly earlier south africa and india have been fighting for it for a long time since last year basically and one of the people who expressed his happiness today was south africans president serum apostle let's listen and now we welcome the statement by the united states minister. of. the. intellectual property protection probably seeing. this is a. solemn truth. it goes to show. influence we are

a country working together with others. but we also need to be realistic here this is the only have an impact in the long run not so much on the short run i talked to a member of the health ministers advisory committee on vaccines today and he basically said on the short run it will not to make a difference that may it takes a very long time to produce vaccines and there's only a handful of countries on the continent that having the capacity to do so is south africa is one of them but only to a limited extent there's not a single vaccine that is currently produced in south africa from scratch even if you might recall the news that johnson and johnson will produce their vaccine here in south africa it's only part way is true because basically the vaccine is sent here and only the fill and finishing part is done in south africa so it's still a very long way to go. d.w.

correspondent crease their forests thank you very much it's it's stay in south africa the pandemic has worsened existing struggles like access to electricity south africa's main energy provider is struggling to meet demand as winter in the country approaches to make matters worse the u.s. wants to end international backing for carbon intensive power a concern for coal dependent south africa. seems like this has become all too familiar in south africa with coal power plants are able to meet electricity demand power companies have resorted to scheduling blackouts to protect the national grid from collapse outside major cities the situation is often even worse with many places not connected to a power supply at all in africa overall access to electricity had actually been on the rise over the past 5 years but the pandemic has reverse that trend last year

some 592000000 people in africa did not have access to power. in south africa coal fired power plants account for 90 percent of energy consumed since 2016 the u.s. government has invested some $9000000000.00 in the country's fossil fuel industry but under the current administration in washington that looks set to change for more on this i'm joined by yasmin salmon tar she is an africa energy analyst at the international energy agency while we heard in the report there that the pandemic has led to fewer people with electricity access how did that happen. yes we've noticed that the international energy agency actually discovered in our flagship report the world energy outlook that the number of people without access to electricity has actually risen for the 1st time in 7 years so from 2013 to 21000 the number of people with access was actually rising but the code that met in 1000

pandemic actually reversed progress so this is something incredibly shocking we also noticed that millions of people who actually already had access to electricity can no longer afford basic energy services in the continent. at the start of the pandemic governments were forced to shift financing that was reserved to electricity to completely emergency measures so for example in uganda subsidies that were set aside for electricity access were actually put on hold and in south africa we noticed that. funding that was set aside for the real electrification program was actually moved towards health measures and welfare measures as well so that's really set us back a lot in terms of reversing electricity act progress so there was an issue of diverting a race or says what would fix it. so there definitely needs to be more financing

last year we noticed a huge drop in energy investments globally i think it was about down $315000000000.00 but in africa in particular it was down by by one 3rd so that something incredibly shocking $30000000000.00 lost so now we need to have more investment investors or a fraid of investing in africa because we see that the cost of borrowing has actually increased and and in terms of sovereign in terms of sovereign cost the percentage points rose by 2 percent in the continent to 9 percent which is very high and that makes it more difficult to get investors interested in coming to the continent and investing so these numbers what does it mean at the end of the day that means a further 2000000 people are losing access to electricity or 10 percent less than what we've been gaining in recent years so we really need to work with the international community as well as mobilize. development finance institutions and

donors to come and invest and i discovered that we need about 20000000000 dollars each year from 2021 all the way to 2030 in order to reach universal electricity access in the continent. of africa and our g. analyst at the international energy agency thank you very much thank you now let's take a look at some other business stories making headlines. thousands of workers have blocked traffic in athens and other great cities today to mark a rescheduled labor day the animal workers' day was moved to accommodate orthodox easter strikes a stop in flight public transport and ferries a big issue for today's march is a government plan to shake up labor laws. and battles filmmaker arcelor mittal has reported profit for the 1st quarter of the year the world's largest producer raked in almost 2000000000 euros stopped after a loss

a year earlier demand is seen as an important indicator for the global economy. scots are heading to the polls today in regional elections and the vote is not only about the country's government but about its future as a member of either the united kingdom or the european union rags it has proved a tough burden for scotland there get must talk to whiskey to stellar to get his view. these barrels have to be thoroughly cleaned only then are they ready for the precious fiery spirit of bali and right and instead the distillery in scotland. even palmer has always dreamed of producing his own risky he worked in the industry for 40 years before founding in stanley in the country of 5 north of edinburgh. to me this is a fight for sorts made from serials as distilled in 5 letters for children it creates a sense of place

a sense of identity. the marketing concept is in place and the company video online even as the new whisky matures only when the boss is totally satisfied with the flavor it's supposed to be complex and flowery will fans get that chance to tasted what worries you in palmer however his breaks it when he founded the company he didn't foresee the difficulties that many scottish business owners now have trading with the european union. but we were assured of friction in the street well if this is frictionless trade i would not like to be experiencing friction truett so i think that we do need to fink very carefully about what we do and to be sure that at a specter of whether we're in or out that we're able to treat effectively a 3rd of all scotch whiskey exports go to you the market is worth over

$1000000000.00 euro zone yearly but gregg's it and prove it have it the sector hard the bureaucratic hurdles are multi-faceted previously only one form was enough but now whisky exporters have to fill out different paperwork for each individual e.u. member if scotland declares independence from the u.k. that could create another headache for smaller companies if the change was to come very quickly. or not will be a 3rd very significant change that we would often be able to monitor for small businesses like ourselves we will need a great deal of help to get us through that. the new whisky will find its way to the france and germany yucky export markets in stanley employees hope the logistical problems can be sold in time for them properly aged whiskey to be bottled. and

a reminder of the top story this hour. the u.s. says it will back up proposal before the w t o to temporarily suspend intellectual property rights for cove in 1000 vaccines the e.u. says it's ready to discuss the proposal the effort has been to vaccinations around the globe but at the pharmaceutical industry. for me and the d.w. business thank you so much for watching. where i come from we have to fight for a free press and was born and raised in a military dictatorship with just one t.v. shadow and if you just pay for us one official information as a journalist i have worked on the streets of many counters and they have problems are always the same forward to social inequality

a lack of the freedom of the press. corruption we can afford to stay silent when it comes to the fans of the humans and see them ride through foals to hunt decide to put their trust in us. my name is jenny harrison i work. you're watching news asia coming up today 24 year old hong kong or joshua wong has been sentenced to more prison time with so many top activists in prison where do things stand for the territory civil rights movement plus entire wind its story of covert success the past year could take a new turn we take a closer look at vaccine hesitancy there.