Been defying pandemic restrictions to take part in knightly march as a court ruling last week a banned abortions in cases where the fetus has congenital defects. And police in france have arrested a 2nd suspect over the knife attack at the basilica in nice that left 3 people dead and security has been increased across france after the 3rd is the most attack in 2 months interior minister is warning about more militant attacks are likely. This is d. W. News from berlin follow us on twitter and instagram at studio use or visit our website dot com. For. More on the all. Greetings from berlin the looming lockdown for germany in november is still a hot button topic for public debate particularly with regard to its impact on the cultural scene also coming up. German composer khan performs one of the last concerts in berlin before the coming lockdown and celebrates the high point of his career so far. And after nearly a decade of delays the new Berlin Brandenburg International airport is poised to open at the weekend we sent a reporter to see if the architecture was worth the wait. But as i mentioned germanys 2nd coronavirus lockdown coming into effect this monday for the entire month of november is a blow to Creative Industries across the board and this means no theatre concerts movies or museums and many artists and musicians have started speaking out saying they fear for their very survival a louder than most this time around was german trumpet virtuoso till behind who posted an angry video on his Facebook Page and instagram site that instantly went viral was planning to tour next month with a brand new album thats fresh out on friday lets see if we can have a quick listen to. And i spoke. Earlier on today. And its a pleasure to welcome german trumpet virtuoso to now welcome to the show tell your new album on vacation was just released today congratulations on that front but of course this lockdown puts a bit of a damper on things how are your plans most immediately affected are. There actually have been affected because all of the causes you know maybe with the exception of 3 concerts up in castle so that is a severe change but for the entire country for the time well no. Yes obviously i do you would you say that you agree with the basic necessity of these lockdown measures given that the alternatives could be even more damaging im an artist and everything thats necessary to make sure that everything is secure right now to find out about the virus is something we all support the other question is really you know what are we talking about right now how long will this actually less and also how are we going to survive you know im going to be ok i guess you know but theres so many people right now you know in my environment in the periphery that really really suffer big time and were trying to address this matter. As so much uncertainty there at the moment now you did go out on a bit of a limb posting your video citing discrepancies between state aid for big business and those for the cultural Creative Sector were you surprised at the support that you got from the Artistic Community after after your posting. I was surprised yes because you know i have a decent following you know but this is ridiculous as this is because i seem to have. You know gotten a point there you know and i understand right now its important to talk to. The main question really is do politics understand you know how we work were talking about a scene that hasnt been suffering before the crisis and most likely wont after the crisis you know so were not a huge company you know just trying to degree billions right now right now the government has said that it has provided a 1000000000 euros in support through the 1st lock down and now its making an offer of 75 percent of november earnings can you just tell us quickly why does that fall short for you and what do you feel needs to happen what are your demands. I think anything is welcome right now but i think the basis of no 2 to the pain that were facing right now for. November is all the income in november 2019 you know so this is not how freelance people work you know many many people maybe including me you know i havent made any money you know in november 2008 so i think it is a good way to look at it so its the to find out you know what is the 12th you know all of the last year. That a suggestion and. Its going to be negotiated with the government right now to the plan are calling for more support for the cultural section and for artists to mobilize themselves thanks very much for speaking with me and all the best in the coming weeks and months well speak again. Thanks thanks for having me. On now to a concert that should have taken place at the end of march spots to choose the spring lock down it was pushed to october 29th and that was a timely break for 29 year old can react the german with turkish roots embodies a new artist type for the 21st century as a composer and instrumentalist who is active on social media and the master of his own label and his concert on thursday night here in berlin was like balm for the soul of his audience. Just moments before the concert at the berlin philharmonic its a definite high point in the life of the composer pianist producer and label founder. Can the freedom to rise when playing music but hes also a perfectionist i give this work at home to fit a certain degree of perfectionism as long as you dont overdo it can lead to endless freedom if you take care of certain things ahead of time it makes it that much easier to just let yourself go. In his bearing studio combines electronic music with works from across the centuries for the be beethoven project marking the 250th anniversary of beethovens birth he took his inspiration directly from the great german composer. He was also a teacher so as a teacher i think he would be on the side of helping Young Musicians and composers to find their own way their own path through music and this is exactly what the beautiful is helping me to do. Using his rented piano to yack mixes electronic sounds to his specific. So what im doing here is mainly adding the something electronic to the acoustic sound of the piano and where im doing this is i have the life sound coming through the microphones into my system and the effect sound is going out over here into my loudspeaker and thats the idea behind it that i can add to the acoustic and electronic sound in the here in the concert hall and there is no amplification going on in the piano. The concert at the berlin philharmonic to yack and his own song will take a musical journey through time a selection of works seems to perfectly encapsulates the prevailing mood its one of the last concerts in germany. Before all venues are shut down for november. View will just keep making music im always composing and i dont need a concert for that but im satisfied we just play in my shoes judio. For the movie. Im moving for knowing and hopefully you. Will return to the stage before too long thank you and good to see that optimism there well still waiting for the curtain to go up is the brand new Berlin Brandenburg International airport and needless to say since the original opening was postponed way back in the summer of 2012 its become a bit of a running joke that it will at the building will already be out of date by the time it finally opens for business so lets hope that it really is for real this coming weekend because architects surely it looks like it can have at least reasonable staying power. This is it the 33000 square meters of glass for sard 9000 tons of steel and 160000 cubic meters of concrete that make up the main terminal of the new berlin brandenburg. The building was finished 9 years ago but technical problems including with Safety Systems have delayed the opening architecture critic and nicholas of burnout has come to check the building out. They wanted to make an airport that fits into the plants plateau of the town total region they also wanted to make an airport that is grounded not so dramatic in terms of its effect although it is vast. Its from the broken pieces fall since. Entering terminal one the route is clear long escalators lead up to the main of. The check in area is clearly structure and it was steel pillar supports. A touch of classical modern and some of the huge glass fronts of unimpeded views of the surrounding landscape and into the sky. From the right gear in the ninetys and for 20 years was completely dominated by this idea that we have to build huge funky dramatic. Now architecture has gone back to bother functional buildings and airport is 1st and foremost a technical device so this means that the airport had for a time become totally outdated in terms of architecture but today seems up to date again not least due to its understated approach to architecture and space to be an. Internationally renowned architects mind heart from gerken and forth from mark designed the airport in 1998 what do they think of their work a good 20. Years later. Its not so easy to say oh now i would make it round or square or hexagonal its not our intention to make a unique piece something unique in the world. This dish use of the best thing would be if it were called classical architecture no matter whether you are thinking of the 19th century inching closer or the 20th century and. That. The architects have been in the business for a long time. Which were now close is actually one of the early works the architectural icon through praise due to the short distances to the gate and its hexagonal shape. Is. We have is basically always the same but what comes out in relation to the location in relation to the time is in relation to its perception and appearance very different. Back to our architecture critic. Whats his final verdict on the new but old. d man well today you would take completely different materials you would choose a completely different aesthetic to it but it is an airport that remains true to its own aesthetics in effect. From theory to practice its time for new ports to spread its wings and fly. Along the lines of all good things come to those who wait that is a long awaited occasional i have to sail mistake just a little bit thats all for this time so until we meet again dont forget about the website thanks for watching stay safe and. First. Im sure that of us as we are. In support of. What the savior was able. To bring about. This president ial election is a crucial wide not just for the United States whos leading the race in america is the rise of politics will be right here for you and both tell you everything you need to know as america decides well bring you the numbers issues the background join us for special live coverage from the u. S. Election november 4th on detail the. So shouldnt a medium to several media reports mention a total of at least 55000000000. 00 euros oil. The highest of the century. Tax tricks cost authorities billions. The government is covering up its own failures. It may be the biggest tax scandal in german history for years a cascade of revenue flowed unhindered from state coffers who excell suspect to have become ex is the perfect crime at this for no and it didnt happen with a pistol and a schema but with a pinstripe suit and a tie up us live. Thank and investors took advantage of the law the official filthy there was never a loophole it was simply theft. The players big banks and super rich investors. Only i was able to help clarify a very complex issue of who tried to have me come. What did the politicians know. The skinflint comics are the state failed blatantly haase. Fallout from the scandal kept coming. Since i couldnt have imagined what would happen what we dont cover. In the end the main victim was the taxpayer but how did the finance sectors conjuring trick work was there a legal loophole or was it fraud pure and simple and who foots the bill for the billions more last. September 2901. 00 of germanys biggest tax fraud trials was beginning the 1st criminal case resulting from the comex affair 2 british bankers went before the Regional Court in the city up on the central question were the comics deals criminal. Or was there a legal tax loophole. The fact that the trial took place at all is thanks in part to investigative journalist all of. His reporting brought the scandal to light in 2013 he was working for news magazine show in hamburg. He took an anonymous phone call and what he heard brought him to what may well be the biggest story of his life. He has attacked swords conference and i hated it tauriel meetings and so i was probably the only available reporter at stanton that say because everyone was in the meeting and the receptionist put a call through to me and the caller told me about come eggs and he was just reading of the piece i have to admit id never heard of comics before but when the person mentioned the names of several german investors or my ears pricked up because one of the investors was cast in mush my own. As well as entrepreneur cost and marsh wire there was Meat Industry boss and shell because soccer Club Chairman clemens tanyas and drugstore king air of an mierda these mega rich germans are said to have poured millions into what were attractive investments with high returns all 3 say they didnt know they were involved in suspected come x. Transactions they later took action against the bank that allegedly invested their money in the dubious deals. Journalist all of us had tasted blood even at this early stage the story was incredible in switzerland he met with informants from the secretive banking world who passed on confidential documents to him the explosive leaks suggested that banks and investors had cheated the german tax authorities out of millions. Early research basically showed that this wasnt tax evasion like someone hiding their money in panama or another offshore country to avoid paying taxes and this was essentially financed its not like somebody putting their head into the german state office when i finally understood that because i suddenly got a sense of the dimension of the whole story on infinity. To become. Began investigating major german consumer banks as well as employ when short european private banks he was entering a complex moral of the system behind comics was deliberately designed to be opaque to outsiders especially tax authorities. In order to engage in a comics deal 1st you need some Company Stock on the stock market each shareholder gets an annual payment if the company has made a profit this distribution of profits is called a dividend. A share purchased before the socalled x. Date is referred to as come dividend that is it comes with a slice of the annual profit traded on or after that date the share is x. Dividend with no slice of the profit. Dividends are subject to Capital Gains tax and its this tax thats central to the comebacks trick. Put simply the process works like this. Lets say person a buys a share in a large car company at the end of the fiscal year that company pays out a dividend to a person and. This slice of the companys profit is subject to Capital Gains tax which the state automatically withholds. Person a receives a certificate from their bank and under certain conditions can use it to reclaim the tax from the government. Thats the way things normally work on the stock market but how do come x. Transactions work at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange business journalist valerie holler regularly reports on complex Financial Issues heres her explanation. As i in fact go back but simply comics shares were pushed back and forth between different investors so quickly the tax authorities no longer knew who actually owns them as a result the Capital Gains tax was refunded several times even though it was only paid once so the stage we funded more in taxes than it had collected and the investors got back more tax than they paid in the 1st place i think for have a hope of time to. Imagine a worker paying tax on their income filing their tax return but then getting several tax rebates thats the principle behind comics to make sure nobody caught wind of their scheme the alleged perpetrators used skillfully arranged networks how exactly back to the stock market again. Importantly they come back straight involve several traders but only one share right now person a has it. Then along comes person b. They buy a share of the same company very shortly before the x. Date the cutoff date for dividends but person b. Doesnt buy the share from the company itself but from person c. Person c. Doesnt even own the share at this point this is called a short sale and its completely legal now comes the day of the dividend payout person a gets their profit minus the Capital Gains tax and a certificate with which they can get their money back from the state up to this point everythings normal. But heres the trick. In. Confusion there was only one share a person a sold it to person c. And person c. Pass to deliver the share to person b. Because that sales already happened. So person b. Finally gets their share. And mistakenly they also get a certificate from their bank as if a real dividend had been paid just like with person a. And there you have it in the whole scheme theres only one share but 2 certificates the share is traded back and forth between parties a b. And c. So quickly that it 1st glance the state no longer knows who owns it and mistakenly to tax certificates are issued. So 2 investors get a tax refund from the state even though only one of them actually paid taxes the profit is then shared by all 3 parties. Thats the general structure which shady investors have built up into towering profits because what works on a small scale can work on a large scale to single shares are said to have been pushed back and forth up to 12 times comics became a real industry one that all of our showrooms reporting began to shed light on. With his investigation the journalist unleashed a tidal wave in the banking world one that would eventually threaten to engulf him as well he had no idea how big it would be or what scandals were lurking beneath the surface. An hours drive from berlin is the small city of in the state of brandenburg among the 26000 inhabitants theres little sign of the bustle one bus. Of the nearby german capital what do regular taxpayers think about comics. This is terrible its totally exasperating i also think the state is too passive about it it should put more energy into these things. How could this have been going on for so many years given that so many of our lawmakers have Legal Training it was all fairly risk. For land where those well trained politicians do their work until the end of 2018 hardship was one of them since leaving politics the former green Party Parliamentarian has been fighting for a more transparent Financial System previously as a member of the bundestag he fought for the prosecution of suspected comics perpetrators since. The indignity ted said on the one hand there are those who actually carried out these traces on the actual Share Transactions on the Financial Market the Investment Bankers the story of earth there also has to be tax lawyers to examine everything. For these are often Tax Consultants who came from outside the banks or funds there had to be consultants and people who set up the structures in the 1st is that. Whole group of people had to be in it together. And its all the more frightening that they managed to keep it hidden for such a long time. Several 100 people are said to have been involved experts estimate 400 participants all of whom acted without scruples. In finance markets it is a horse and for in the financial world there are people whose greed knows no bounds is right and have to very actively prevent them from robbing you. And these people must be stopped these are going to muslim stop. One such person may well be the 68 year old once worked as a tack. Its official for the german state then he switched to the private sector starting his own tax consultancy. In december 2900 frankfurts general Prosecutors Office took to court hes accused of having developed comics as a Business Model for private clients thereby committing serious tax evasion. In response to our email inquiries farragher wrote the accusations of the frankfurt prosecutor are wholly unjustified in fact theyre absurd december 2900. 2012 a total of at least 10000000000. 00 euros are believed to have been lost to germany through comic straits. Thats money that could have been spent on hiring 160000. 00 additional teachers. Or buying school meals for every school child in germany for more than a year and a half. For funding the ministry of Family Affairs for a year or. March 24th teen hamburg almost 4 months after the phone call from switzerland all official him and his colleagues were still investigating comex evaluating mountains of confidential documents by the end of march they finally had enough evidence they went public with the scandal their focus was on multimillionaire celebrities and influential swiss banks from knew what he was getting into but what happened next was a complete surprise. I learned weeks or months later that theyd taken a different kind of action the Swiss Private Banks are as enough which was involved in this come ex deal at the expense of the german treasury filed a complaint against me among others. Or and desiring public. His office started an investigation against me i think the Public Prosecutor didnt take action against the bank and it will be investors they took action against the person who made the fraud public namely me as a journalist. The allegation was that shrum had incited Bank Employees to hand over confidential information according to the media the Swiss Private Bank sara zene was one of the players in the comics scandal among the clients was german entrepreneur carson marsh meyer from found himself targeted by the bank. We have an interest. It wasnt until months later that i received documents from whistle blows again and there it was in a black and white on the bank had hired 2 detective agencies to put me under surveillance. And the banks paid a lot to do it close to 100000. 00 english pounds shipped food so they were going to Great Lengths to find out. What was the because. The story gets even more complicated of all people one of sarah own clients managed to take the high flying Financial Institution to court drugstore king air when miller. The german billionaire invested almost 50000000 euros income x. Trades unknowingly according to him miller says the bank misused his money he hired a stuttgart law firm for the case noticed lawyer. Says his client was a victim of the bank. The reason was that my client invested in the supposedly secure Financial Model on the recommendation of the thorazine bank. Comics risk double tax refunds. Ever came up. In the trial against sarah xen the parties contradicted each other. But millers lawyer got some unexpected help from inside the bank. A long Time Employee passed on internal documents that helped a cut side win the case for miller. The sara zene informant wants to stay anonymous but is willing to talk to us about what he witnessed at the bank. I saw that the bank wanted to sell and had already sold a Financial Product clearly designed to defraud german tanks authorities when customers bought the product they were told that what they were buying was completely on the level and legal according to the informant the product originated with mr comics himself berger confronted with the accusations berger told us by email that he only advised a few clients regarding comex and no banks but the former sara xen employee says otherwise he claims he tried to raise the alarm about burger numerous times at one point i was told very clearly that my reservations were misplaced that dr baer go was an expert in german tax law my boss told me several times that baerga had excellent networks in germany right up to the highest levels of government in berlin i was told he knew what he was doing and that we should just trust him. And it wasnt just happening in switzerland some large german Financial Institutions were also caught up in the scandal none of them were willing to answer our questions about comics on camera but we did get some written responses. The frankfurt public Prosecutors Office is investigating in connection with shared transactions of comets and the former dress that our bank performed over the dividend record date socalled come x. Transactions coming out sponsors cooperating fully with the authorities. Has cooperated and continues to cooperate with Public Prosecutors investigating criminal offenses regarding possible tax evasion in connection with the age bibis comics transactions which affect both hooper for itself and a former repeat customer. Did not participate in organized comics trades either as a short seller or as comics purchaser however the bank was involved in comics transactions of customers. We did not receive a statement from swiss banks our aseem. As all of their trying to gain insight into the secretive financial world he came across an important witness. As part of our investigation we had an insider. He came clean in an interview with us he also described a meeting here in frankfurt in the high rise building where his office was. Bigger told the group if anyone here has a problem with the fact that what were doing prevents kindergartens and schools and roads from being renovated so they should please get up and leave no one left the meeting room and i mean they didnt know the meaning of the word morality. More to condemn it. When we asked him about these alleged statements bakkers response was to say that a lawyer only represents his clients interests and doesnt work for the state worse your. Quorum goole why didnt come x. Traders seem to care where the money came from was it arrogance or ignorance. Hamburg business psychologist eva short to alstom knows about the secretive circles of bankers bank of the bankers see their role as 1st and foremost to increase their customers investment or at least not to let it decrease and given that they consider it absolutely fair and legitimate to evade taxes in order to save their customers money. The more their customers invested the more the suspected comics perpetrators made in commissions that meant vague money and not see one of them both a yacht which he supposedly named come ex ups and broke when there was a broker who had 2 villas on mediocre one in the north and one in the south when he was asked why he said theres a 2 degree temperature difference here in winter i mean the one thats a bit warmer and in summer i mean the cooler one the British India in and these are the kinds of a 1st World Problems that come to traitors faces they dont even know what to do with their money and we need. The high life at the taxpayers expense thanks to the state rebates comebacks participants remained in their wealth bubble far from the reality most of us know. Journalists like oliver shoreham were stirring up a lot of dirt as they investigated the story and things were about to get even dirtier. Back to berlin an important place in the comic saga germanys political establishment has come in for heavy criticism over its handling of the scandal. When you meant those houses if someone leaves the door of the house open so these can wander in and out and theyre partly responsible if theres a burglary of a school with come x. This they feel blatantly discuss it has to be dealt with people need to take political responsibility but. The 1st signs of that failure came early on in 1992 an official in the Economy Ministry of the state of has reported the 1st comics transactions 10 years passed and nothing happened. By 2002 at the latest the German Government was aware of comics the association of german banks sent a letter to the finance ministry drawing attention to comics dealers. At the time the finance minister was hans i should of the center left social democrats hes the only former finance minister to agree to an interview he wasnt at the helm during the peak of comics deals but his term did cover the arrival of the banking associations mutter. Job here in france to my not side as finance minister i never heard anything about this topic during my time as finance minister if so recently though there was a letter which i later saw from the association of german banks to the finance ministry on a clerical level in the a matter stated clerical often there is a whole lot even looking at the time it seemed to be it was really technical tax issues and not anything that had to do with large revenues or revenue losses to the states to i know i know most of the stuff thats why it never got beyond that level oh you would use even then you know skookum. But that explanation implies a minister who was unaware of the goings on in his ministry to whom Important Information wasnt presented. Findus it was a bit does that mean is that i find it very plausible that the minister didnt find out about it at the time that that when if that doesnt mean hes not responsible that if i vote only is his responsibility is to put systems in place so that people in his department know whats going on. And that didnt happen but thats what hes there for. In order to gain more insight into the financial world the ministry also relies on external experts under i shal successor perished im broke there was another blunder a former fiscal court judge from disallowed or was assigned to among other things come x. That was asking for trouble because the man is suspected of having received payments from banking associations while he was working for the finance ministry on legislation for banking regulation he was given all manner of confidential information sent to his private email account its believed that he sometimes forwarded the information to contacts in the finance industry. Of all people this man who also helped create the 1st law designed to prevent comics he used the letter sent by the association of german banks as a template it had been provided to him by the finance ministry under hans i showed the letter included a proposal for the prevention of comebacks which became the basis for the new law it did reduce the states risk of my ability but one crucial loophole was left open the ability to carry out comics deals through a foreign country. The new law was passed in 2007 under finance minister perished. Comebacks trades were now no longer possible from germany but they could still be done from abroad perished on book success or both come short of law let valuable time slip by before acting it was only in 2012 that legislation finally stopped coming in germany in 2016 opposition lawmakers helped to launch an inquiry to shed light on political aspects of the scandal. Is headed for heavy on the board as reviews lee said to the other parties the minds of the why dont we clear this up together if youve got something clearly went wrong and we owe it to the taxpayer you see is what its pretty hard the. On the social democrats rejected the idea. When an inquiry began they said it was unnecessary but in the final report they tried to keep the calculator at last as a small as possible or something thats refuted today. They tried to make it seem as if everyone had done everything right. Thats. At the time he was financial policy spokesman for the greens in the bundestag and played a major role in establishing the inquiry the suspicion was that there were numerous failures under finance ministers. And. And that authorities were called in too late. The journalist all of them also followed the inquiry closely if you see the finance ministers distinguished themselves by the claim that they remember nothing and know nothing is that for now thats kind of a damning indictment that maybe its true that the information didnt reach the middle. That says a lot about the political apparatus or about the ministries that this sort of information would get stuck in the bureaucracy and not reach the very top when you discover that no decisions were made before thats a tragedy and a systemic problem with the. Billionaire. Was called in as a witness he saw himself as a victim. Hopefully i was able to help clarify a very complex issue of valving me and other investors being cheated out of money by the bank. And there was a lot of money involved comics was a scheme for the super rich the higher the stake the higher the tax refund experts say that the private investors in the 3 cases mentioned here may have invested up to 300000000 euro. Another person who came before the committee was the former judge working for the finance ministry. Because the film never forget that one plot was a really hot day everyone was waiting except teams he was pretty cool and sitting there in his suit no lawyer with him no documents he was pretty sure of himself and other than to me when he was confronted with a claim that he leaked this information and his own emails were read out he just said smugly thats all in the past and thats how it was they couldnt get anything on him botho. The inquiry brought political failures to light even so the final report would later state that the responsible authorities had acted appropriately. Today former german finance minister hans ayesha is concerned about the signal the comics affair could send their stuff. Thats an invite as the state cant accept this because in the long run in undermines trust in the state criminality we cant abolish crimes and thats not something well succeed in doing in the course of Human History most of what we have to equip the authorities so that they catch criminals as much as possible when it wasnt because it is i think we could do more to make sure that we have the kinds of laws that ensure criminals get the punishment they deserve it uses for asian fatigue and. It sounds good in theory but as so often the reality is different in switzerland a trial began not against the bankers but against more your eckart zite and his informant the accusation corporate espionage eckart zite had passed on his information to German Authorities which significantly advance to the investigation. Using i pile always schnitt. I were one part of an instance of Financial Market crime. I mean its organized crime that wasnt clear before its transnational you have this influence a. Hobby i recognize that an early stage and i also inform the authorities in switzerland. When meant when youre accused