now seeing out 2022 in the same ruinous way, but it began just before we go, let's get a reminder of our top story. at this hour, football legend pele has died of cancer aged 82. he helped brazil when 3 worlds cups, and is seen as wonderful falls. greatest players play enchanted fans and dazzled opponents. rest in peace is all for now, don't forget, you can get more on our website at p w dot com. thanks for watching people and trucks injured when trying to flee the city center. more and more refugees are being turned away as the border. families played on the tax in syria to these credit owners with demonstrated people lean extreme round

off counting $200.00 people with around the world. more than 300000000 people are seeking refuge. yes. why? because no one should have to flee. make up your own mind w. made for mines. ah, ah, european gas prices fall to their lowest since the start of the war in ukraine. does this point to an easing of price pressure, or will there be worse to come in 2023. also coming up here, opinions are still feeling the pinch of higher bills that forcing more businesses

to save energy and some rather innovative ways and fireworks are back in germany after a 2 year ban on their sale due to cove it at that time again dw business walton, wholesale prices for natural gas have dropped back to the level that they were at at before. russia began. its invasion of ukraine. prices for january contract briefly hit just over 76 years a megawatt hour before rising again slightly as a massive drop from the $300.00 euros in the summer. when russia started throttling supply to europe, we asked energy analyst olivia, can the ratty, why the price has dropped and whether it will stay that way. so you can guess by having deed fallen sharply over the last couple of months. thanks to what i would see a lucky combination of factors for europe, including i've seen somebody mild weather, humid competition from china, which have helped your bill stocks and therefore have drug prices lower. however,

does not mean we should get complacent. here to be honest. there are still a lot of factors that could lead to type markets next winter in particular. and that might mean right, prices rise back up again. for example, china is coming back to market with the quotes tricia easy over there. industrial demand could be coming back as well in europe. now the prices are little bit lower . we can throw out to cold spell in the winter, you know, in the next couple of months. and if you will need to balance next winter, we've a lot less russia and gas have been ever did before. so all of these could mean we're still facing a very hard situation. and even in the longer term, we also need to consider what high prices will do to do. you can industry, which is something that will have to continue to face for many years to come levia karate. they're explaining that those falling prices are thanks in part to mild

temperatures. but let's touch on another fact that you mentioned industrial demand in europe, companies and local governments here have been taking steps to reduce their energy use. and it's part of the success of those measures so far that's helped to tamp down on gas prices. masturbation peter slayer is making a great delivery by a horse drawn carriage. it's acquaint picture, but also a sign of desperate times. energy prices are up 65 percent compared to last year. slayer is doing his part to get some attention and make people aware of his troubles. it is a gaz, please are on this and all try to suggest crisis and electricity crisis or raw materials have gone up in price to and now there's also a lack of trained personnel. i'd say we're going through some very hard times at the moment. country me site moment on saving energy is key here in the southern german city of tubing and home to 90000 people. street lights are turned

off at night. the city's mayor bullies perma came up with the idea. he says, every kilowatt hour accounts has the signal to transistor to let's why all of tubing in this dark between the hours of one and 4 in the morning. that saves us around the same amount of energy of 4 person household would use all year. been reduced, as i heard about him. on some streets, the city has installed lamps equipped with motion detectors. the l. a. d lights, they dim until someone walks by and triggers the sensor for them to become brighter . that uses 90 percent less energy than regular lights retailer. so also adapting at this small in hamburg, 40 percent of lights have been turned off entirely. as for the rest, only low energy, eli di lights, i used for gaba from stock by the government, has asked for energy savings of 15 percent with exceeded that goal. the

government has also promised financial aid to help businesses survived the energy crisis. master baker slayer is hoping the funds will be paid out soon. now to some of the other global business stories making news. the german federation of trade unions as warned that job losses will climb next year. if energy prices rise once again as expected. they say companies could face insolvency that germany's industrial base itself is under threat. the organization demanded subsidized electricity prices for companies. immigration officers of british airports including london, heathrow, and gatwick are continuing their strikes that demanding improved working conditions and higher wages to offset rising prices. the strikes are expected expected to last until new year's eve. tell us get an update on a story from earlier in the week. southwest airlines struggling to return to normal

operations after a severe winter storm in the north east and us leaving most of its passengers stranded for days. yes quarter has more for us from new york on this. and yes, southwest is finally, i'm about to get back to normal. is that right? what are they saying? yeah, daniel, there seems to be a progress. so we still had about 22300 to cancellation from here on thursday, but for friday. and the last time i checked, they were only about 39 cancellation, so i am southware seems to be back in action. it still might take a little bit of time to bring the stranded passenger sent their luggage should together. there also will be a reimbursement. that's what the company announced. those will probably be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, sir, but things are, are getting back to normal. and also the stock price that got hammered quite a bit to the past couple of trading session and saw

a solid increase of almost 4 percent of the thursday session. and how can all of this happen? there's gotta be a lot of self reflection at southwest. now i guess because the other airlines managed to stabilize pretty quickly after that storm. yeah, there will definitely be some self for reflection. a danielle and i did hear from some analysts that one of the issues with southwest this that if they take a lot of time to change things. so one analyst is saying it's a glacial speed, a southwest, this serb showing when it comes to really changing the business. in general, it is well known for years that southwest has to upgrade it. system is a very sophisticated m system to get the crews and to planes, so gather if things run smoothly. that system has proven to be a pretty effective firm. also the stock price of the past couple of years has done much better than from some of the rivals was under stress. the systems obviously do not really work and that's where south west has to make

a changes. but that's going to take time. as i said, okay, lots of time for self reflection for southwest, i thank you very much ins, quarter in new york. and from the air to the sea for shipping companies going green takes a lot more than just switching to more efficient fuels. entire life cycle of a vessel has to be taken into account, sending off ships to scrap yards in south asia was long been on. but now ship recycling is becoming a big business here in europe to these gigantic gable layers could tell a yarn or 2 about their journey is on the high seas. but countries like india or turkey. now high demand for shipping parts is making scrapping attractive here. a country where wages and costs tend to meet recycling less profitable. the highest cost is actually the environmental site, the price to get rid of your waste or hazardous waste that that's $1.00 of the

higher costs. but what we do different from a lot of other places we're good at reselling and reusing. and not just recycling or scrubbing. it all started here over 30 years ago with the fishing boat. at that time, there were bonuses for scrapping large fleets. the founder of the company was a fisherman. he thought instead of paying money for somebody to scrap, it will do it ourselves until the equipment. so it started by their own ship and to be able to sell their equipment on board. selling parts of small fishing boats doesn't work anymore. coastal fishermen have largely disappeared in northern europe. but more and more shipping companies and ship masters are recognizing the benefits of old, fully intact parts, even for giant vessels, especially now in times of skyrocketing raw material prices and major supply chain issues. after all, just one missing part can cripple

a ship. so today today our business is mostly spare parts, so instead of selling only complete engines, it's a lot of small parts. it can be everything from old compass to turbocharged years or cylinder heads for more or less all european engines. even though denmark is a country with high salaries, scrapping and recycling vessels appears to be a viable business for years to come. and finally, after a 2 year pandemic hiatus germany is once again allowing the sale of fireworks. it's a new use tradition that sure to go off with a bang this weekend. get them while their hot fireworks are once again for sale in germany in the run up to new years eve. this year that means december 29th to the 31st germans from the country side to the cities will ring in the new year

with typically a lot of sparkle and a lot of noise. you're missing. we haven't been able to set off fireworks for 2 years. it's a must this year, but also we can do it again. so he thought, of course we're going to the moment focused at amazon with pre orders. we've spent about $200.00 euros. so yeah, we'll enjoy it. the v. p. i pyrotechnics, industry association is expecting a $120000000.00 euros and fireworks sales this year. manufacturers hope for rocketing sales. many watched previous years. inventories get dusty in the face of benz government system. yes, we lost more than 40 percent of our workforce even closed our largest plant in germany with our in house production. despite that, we are hopeful about the end of the year when hawkins fall off to see i was. and while mary makers are excited to light up this weekend, those hospitals and environmentalists are worried about smoke and localized pollution, of course, but also about the medical risk to amateurs handling explosives on german streets.

well, that's also going out with a bang and you're up to date with d w business. if you want more, of course, you can check us out a d, w dot com slash business. we also have a youtube channel that's d w. news. got lots of business news on that to me on the business team here in berlin. thanks for watching. she's ukraine's 1st female train operator victoria coach. this has always been her dream job for just a few years ago, getting it was unthinkable. discriminatory regulations prevented ukrainian women from working in traditionally male professionals. but the war has changed. every single focus on europe. next, on d. w. oh,

is the end of the pandemic in sight. we show what it could look like. a return to normal. and we visit those who are finding it difficult. he sees his successes at noon in a weekly coven 19 special. in 60 minutes on d, w. o. b. in question about life, the universe and everything. you the answer? well then give it here. the answer to almost everything. we're document tree series with clever crazy ground breaking

questions. can we go into the afterlife? are we kidding dumber. how can we feed every 1? 40 to the answer to almost everything. starts january 15 on d w. ah . hello and welcome to a special edition of focus on europe. we're bringing you some of our favorite stories of the year from the people who inspired us.