Sinks into chaos to join the 2nd time business poland in terms of the people threatens the old order. Closest people. To stores and arrows that defines overmanaged today. 979 the big blue days since december 23rd. The American Economy heads into 2020 at record setting pace december completes the longest ever period of growth in the u. S. The 1st ever calendar decade without a recession. Also coming up a landmark ruling in france Telecoms Company orange is guilty of driving its employees to suicide. And the Charity Raffle in paris hopes to raise big bucks by optioning off of work for one of the great masters for. This sort of Business Report from steve beers in berlin thanks for watching its a 1st in u. S. History the economy has expanded for 126 consecutive months that also means is the 1st time the country has recorded an entire calendar decade without a recession both milestones were reported today by the National Bureau of Economic Research to be fair the expansion began at a very low point the end of the Great Recession and has been uneven with job growth slow at 1st and wages picking up later but things been booming since donald trump became president aided by his tax cut stimulus and moves to slash regulation. Now one sign of that booming economy is the record breaking u. S. Markets s. And p. 500 on friday hit a record high for the 7th straight trading session nikkei didnt get the memo however its shares did it despite a strong Earnings Report revenue for the 2nd quarter beat analyst expectations although Gross Margins didnt nike posted higher revenues from china despite being hit by u. S. Tariffs as part of the trade dispute notably the companys air jordan brand hit its own milestone raking in 1000000000. 00 in quarterly revenues. Lets bring in our financial correspondent in new york ians korda yes lets start with this milestone with the u. S. Economy a decade without a recession how much longer can this go on. Well what we say at least on wall street is bull markets dont die of old age so just because we were on the rise for 10 years with the us economy does not necessarily mean that its going to come to an end 2020 but certainly the longer the expansion takes the more likely it gets that at some point there will be a turning point but at least for now most economists here on wall street do not expect a recession for 2020 and well there is some debate going on that its not the strongest expansion that were seeing but is it but it is the longest and as you mentioned 126 consecutive months of growth is pretty fascinating and so as i said for 2020 so far most economists do not see a recession at the horizon and i want to ask you about nike now overcoming tariffs to beat wall street expectations with revenue yet still seeing it shares slip today why is that. And well the stock has been on fire all year long believe its about 46 percent to the upside just on thursday at least during trading we reached a new record high and if you then have tiny little mistakes or or numbers that do not beat expectations then that is not good enough to drive the stock even higher you already mentioned the margins were a bit to the lower side and also business in the United States to do a bit less than expected but you mentioned the jordan of basketball and it is also interesting to see Michael Jordan still playing 16 years ago but his brand is still very solid but yes small misses the margins and was the business in north america that was the reason why we saw a bit of profit taking in their stock of nike. In support of their force in new york thank you. Russia and ukraine will sign a 5 year deal on the transit of russian gas to europe via ukraine thats according to announcements by both parties its the 1st such deal since the russian annexation of crimea and it followed intense negotiations with the e. U. These pipes are front and center of a geopolitical crisis north stream 2 percents a new undersea route for russia to deliver gas to the e. U. Bypassing its neighbor ukraine in the midst of a conflict that started with russias annexation of crimea in 2014 whats at stake for ukraine up to 3000000000. 00 in transit fees for gas coming from the gas field in western siberia it flows through the brotherhood pipeline crossing ukraine into slovakia for further distribution within the e. U. With the introduction of the north stream pipeline in 2011 much of the russian gas delivered to the e. U. Had a new route and north stream 2 will double the capacity leaving ukraine to worry not only about a major source of income but also its own demand ukraine depends on gas from russia but moscow has weaponized its supplies in the past turning off the spigot repeatedly in the 1990 s. Russian president Vladimir Putin says similar action is no longer planned if. We are not going to sign any kind of contract with ukraine in order to stop gas translator no we are interested in this gas transit we are ukraine we want it its a convenient route incidentally the ukrainian route is longer than the route along the baltic sea it is longer and more expensive for us but nevertheless this route is worked out to central and to Southern Europe its good and were ready to keep it going to do with. The next hurdle awaits north stream 2 before the weekend u. S. President trump is expected to impose sanctions on Companies Involved in the construction of the pipeline the u. S. Tries to limit russian gas supplies to europe and instead sell its own natural gas to their allies. In the late 2000 scores of employees at France Telecom killed themselves or attempted suicide the company had been trying to force them out by degrading working conditions now a french court has found the firm which has since renames oranje and 3 of its former top executives guilty of moral harassment its a landmark ruling. France telecom was under siege back in 2006 when a brutal reorganization plan saw over 20000 employees lose their jobs the ruthlessness of the redundancies was a shock to the workers and scores of employees were so desperate they were driven to suicide. This man d. D. A. Lombard was in charge of the company at the time and this is how employees reacted to him. Today a paris court ruled that the company now another is orange bears legal responsibility for the suicides and as sentenced to 4 months in prison for the illegal methods used to help the company shut thousands of workers lombards lawyer says he will appeal the verdict. And. More than all the Company Needs to move all in its cocktail they need to put this trial behind them its up to oranges board now to decide what they want to do next to appeal or not respect and i respect that office here but as far as the physical people in this trial are concerned its a whole different story and its normal that they will appeal. The because until it up and looks at the fact that relatives of the victims want to see an example set me just to secure why they did the others allowed themselves to behave this way its because they felt they could be punished how can we put an end to this impunity the only way is to deprive them of freedom thats the only thing they fear and feel stupid orange was fined 75000. 00 euros and ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of euros in damages to the families of the victims. Lets take a look now at some of the other business stories making headlines. The World Bank Says chinas Economic Growth remains moderate but will begin to slow in 2020 linder predicts chinese expansion will drop by 2 tenths of a percentage point expect short term risks to remain despite the recent thaw in trade relations between the u. S. And china. Frances Competition Authority has fined google 150000000. 00 euros for anti competitive behavior and for inconsistent rules on its google ads platform u. S. Search for firm says it will appeal the decision in September Google agreed to pay nearly 1000000000 euros to french authorities to settle a fraud probe. A call it great art for a great cause for a 100 euro ticket a Charity Raffle in paris plans to raise funds for clean water in developing nations and award an original picasso painting to 1000000 euros. Measuring just 30 centimeters by 46 not 2 more but popular because so is a still life from 1921 it represents a table newspapers and of course a glass about something. But this is not just any problem because so abstract or long converse the french nonprofit helped the others hopes to sell up 2200000 raffle tickets for a 100 euros each with the winner randomly selected by a computer in early january its a chance to own a picasso and to do some good. That idea was to have a rough because everyone over all over the world could participate and we wanted to get money from everybody to raise money for a good cause so what would be a good price to give for a profit that everyone all over the world would know i thought of a painting and obviously picasso is the most Famous Artist ever so i thought picasso would be a good choice. All proceeds from the raffle will go to the International Charity care for a project to provide clean water and sanitation facilities to schools and villages in cameroon madagascar a morocco. Prize winner will be announced in an official draw at christies paris on january 6th organizers hope to make it in the new will event. And thats all for me and the Business Team here berlin theres a lot more Business News and stories on our website dot com slash business im stephen theres a villain thats watching. The food. Quality technology. Where. Technology with no affordable prices. From electric pick ups. To classes. Show us how. The artist. Oscar winning director carry. Her films go straight to your heart because she shows the childrens eyes. The kind joy come and sing on society the true children. Spotlight only. An interim. W. Oh. See. The. Christmas. Hello and welcome to tomorrow today this week were going places really fast. From brussels to barcelona in half an hour no problem for the hyperloop a vision of future transit. And talking about future transport we take a spin in a driverless car on up by the test truck. Also a robust simple and low cost electric vehicle