the and there was always in paris and funny for chart in vienna. reporting a quick update now were working with thomas miller and much of have been welcome back to team jeremy one months before all important european championships that you had been told they were no longer needed on the team back in 2019. all right, thank you. so much for spending this part of your day with this. the business is up next with stephen beardsley on layla, her rock on behalf all of us here. thank you for watching. ah, how many pushed out in the world? climate change very close to stores. this is much less the way from just one week. how much less can really get we still have time to act. i'm doing all this. can you hear me

now? yes, we can hear you. loud. bring you angela mac or never. right, just so. what is? who is medical really what move back to people who follow along the way. myers and critic join us for metals, glass. the me the coin fly continues with a dramatic one day humble crypto currency down 30 percent on the day. at one point after china, they go to composition to digital coins and orange investors to get speculative trading in them. we'll hear more from our markets correspondent also on the show, the pandemic has squeezed the global middle class, extending more families into poverty and making economic in many parts of the world,

even more difficult. and the u. s. is expected to remove a major hurdles with controversial gas pipeline between russia and germany, will get the latest ongoing stream to love. welcome to the show. in berlin, bitcoin plunge below $40000.00 for the 1st time in more than 3 months. giving up 14 percent of its value on wednesday alone, and extending losing streak for crypto current season. reason days latest drop falls, a statement from the people's bank of china saying financial and payment institutions should not accept crypto currencies as payment. buying and selling crypto has been banned in china since 2019 country had once been home to around 90 percent of the global trade in the sector or financial correspondent conrad booth. and has been following story for us in frankfort. have listened, officially this crack down on the use of crypto currencies by chinese financial institutions has to do with speculative risk involved. and with the high

volatility of such crypto currencies. you stand to lose a lot of money. if you don't really pay good attention. another not so official reason is probably that the chinese authorities don't like the lack of control. they have over such crypto currencies that people's bank of china, the reserve bank there is currently in the process of launching its own crypto currency. the so called digital remain be it's likely that the people's bank wants to reduce some of the competition for its own state run crypto currency, financial correspond conrad booth in there. the pandemic has shopped, shocked, rather economies around the world. but emerging and developing nations often lack the resources to shield their own workers with programs such as unemployment insurance or short time work schemes. and his job losses are mounting. and that's threatening the livelihoods of many who had just attains a middle class lifestyle. in india,

each day brings with this more images of suffering, the country has recorded over 200000 deaths from the corona virus. experts believe the real figure could be far higher in developing nations where health care systems are often already overstretch and public funds lacking the human as well as the economic told of the pandemic is especially high indian argentina. both posted an economic decline of close to 10 percent last year. so the africa recorded a hefty loss of 7 percent. and in the philippines, it was most dramatic of all with the output, the planning, nearly 16 percent locked downs and weakening demand worldwide has forced many companies to let staff go. this is led to a steep decline in the middle class. people who before the pandemic, enjoyed a life of relative economic stability. according to an analysis by the pew research center, which to find the middle class as those earning between $10.00 and $50.00

a day. in the middle class shrunk by a 3rd last year in the south asian region overall. it declined by a quarter and in sub saharan africa, by more than a 10th latin america to saw significant drop. the decline of the middle classes is an especially big concern for large multinational. after all this demographic, the tends to buy cars, electronics, goods, and higher and fashion goods that a smaller section of people in developing nations can now afford. the w correspondent, joy doreen beer, joins me by phone from nairobi. joy, good to have you on the show. let's talk about african middle class. who is it and what businesses are dependent on it. thanks, steve. the africa development bank considers or defines africa, middle class as those ironing high income relative to average. and those are individuals with an annual income exceeding about $4000.00 us dollars in purchasing

power. and the strongest countries that have robust and growing private sector as those that tend to have the higher number of middle class individuals and to nice in north africa has the highest concentration of middle class in north africa. and they are also very susceptible to economic shocks. and so the reason why businesses depend on them so much is because they have a higher purchasing power at across the african continent. we also have a high concentration of, of, of middle class citizens in gun, in kenya in botswana, born in south africa as well as my area. but then again, the, our major me entrepreneurs who are boosted by the growth or robustness of the private sector in the different african countries joy this pandemic has thrown the middle class into turmoil across the world. is there

a feeling in africa that this shift could be long lasting? there is a perception that the recovery of the economies across africa is also going to determine how fast the african middle class will grow. because as of now we are seeing that some of them have had their income deep below $4000.00, and that means the purchasing power as well has gone down because the concentration majorly in technology, in tourism as well as manufacturing. and so the income is not as good as it was before the pandemic, and therefore they are now considering other avenues of economic recovery both for the businesses and for the economies as well. right. joy during their joining us by telephone from nairobi. thank you very much. let's take a look now, some of the other business stories, making headlines, car sales, and the

e. you are recovering from a near standstill during the pandemic data showing that 862000 vehicles were sold in april 3 times as much as a year earlier. but still down from pre pandemic levels, growth has been strongest in italy and france. european commission is proposing a more unified taxation of companies across the block. would include measures that would make large multinational publish their effective tax rates to ensure greater transparency, the password tax regimes across the eas, 20 southern member nations are struggling with large volumes of cross border trade . when the knotted seats is expected to wave sanctions on, the company overseen construction of russia's north stream to pipeline into germany . its move is already being welcomed in berlin and russia. what is north street to northeastern to is already 95 percent built out. between it runs through the baltic sea, mostly parallel to the previous north stream pipeline, beginning in the russian harbor,

town of 5 boards and going all the way to an already completed terminal in the german state of mecklenburg, western pomeranian, the u. s. s. claim the pipeline would make europe too dependent on russian energy, also marketing its own liquid natural gas to europe. the us state department is now expected to report to congress that the project company, north stream ag did engage in sexual activity. but it was in the u. s. national interest to waste sanctions or if from one this i'm joined by d. w chief international editor, mr. walker, who's been following a story for a while. richard, good to see you. does this move effectively mean that washington is pulling its opposition from nordstrom to stephen? no, actually it doesn't. in fact, the u. s. position has been pretty adamant all along ever since the administration began and goes back to the trumpet ministration as well. and even texas state, tony blinking was re emphasizing this in a phone call to his german count yesterday. but what is happening is that it is the

escalating, it's all positions. it's essentially just not going ahead with the sanctions on the company at the very heart of the project, which of course, will greatly increase the likelihood that it actually finally gets finished. what's behind this change? of course you said the escalation, what does that mean? yeah, well essentially what that biking ministration appears to be doing is recognizing the fact that the german government really doesn't want to back down the street. they've been pretty, equally adamant that they want to go ahead with it. that it is a commercial venture that the government kind of has no business going in and pulling the rug from underage and the biking ministration appears to be. now calculating that it is not work, major confrontation with germany over this project. it needs germany on its side for too many other issues, for instance, of forging a more common line towards china. and it's quite killing because, you know, we look at what german officials have been saying behind the scenes of the last few

months they've been indicating that they don't think the bike and ministration really wants to push this into a major confrontation. and this seems to be showing that they were right, and they seem to want this show down over this project at least as things stand now at the same time, right? and we can say there's still opposition to this. what hurdles remain for this project yet? but certainly are still potential hurdles later this year in germany in september there's going to be an election. the green party looks very likely to get into the next government. so if the project is not completed by then, that could raise new questions because the green party is strongly opposed to the pipeline, not just on geopolitical grounds, but also on climate change grants. the other potential prospect is that the project gets finished, but shutting it off remains as a potential leave of for germany in the future disputes with russia, that is something the german officials have also mooted as a potential compromise with by the t. all right,

a story continuing to play. richard walker, d w chief international areas there. thank you very much. we may have noticed that the past year has been all about coven vaccine developing them. trialing them, rolling them out, all that effort in such short time. i've taken masses of money or culture now increasing for more funding to go to co treatments. and german government says it's listening. switching off the corona virus, making it harmless. scientists and branch by germany gave themselves that task. 12 months later, they seemed to have reached their goal my, me to come in to the food and the most of the drugs that are currently in development, treat moderate or mild code. 1900 infections. but our drug specifically designed to cure the really serious cases and we're having the account cool hire this research and the 1st clinical tests have been financed primarily by private investors and a state investment bank. currently, the federal government is providing

a total of $50000000.00 euros for corona virus drug research, a funding part that has to be shared by several companies. by comparison, 3 vaccine research projects received a combined total of more than $740000000.00 euros. germany's research minister says vaccine trials need more volunteers. that's. that's a lot of money. you simply need larger sums because of course, the vaccinate healthy people need many more healthy volunteers to participate in that. the other is starting a therapy with a drug for already sick people in a very targeted way by current. nevertheless, a rethink at the federal level seems to have begun. further, funding has already been announced from me that we lost many, many months simply because the funding was not available to the drug developers. we actually can't afford to lose any more time in the vital inside her young core at their pukes,

will need 50000000 euros for the production of their drug. once it is given, emergency approval, federal funding alone won't be enough. they're looking for international investors, talks are already well advanced with one a chinese sovereign wealth fund. and that's it for me and a dw business team. you can find out more about these and other business stories online. dot com slash business will be back in a few hours with more news. thank you very much. the to fight against the corona virus pandemic. how has the rate of infection in developing what goes to the latest research information and contact the corona virus? because the 19 special next on dw into the conflicts in the bottom conversation between israel and the palestinians

gone into the 2nd week. i guess this week from jerusalem is michael freeman, policy advisor to israel's foreign minister. country now listening to the key criticisms being leveled by the by ministration, to go back to seeking a 2 state solution. conflict 60 minutes w ah. ah, where all dreaming of taking all over again. but what really awaits us experts say when travel restrictions, these customs cues will be longer than ever. this one, just be flipping 3 passports, they'll be test results and vaccination certificates to check. the cruise ships and

hotels will take a tough line to the industry will.