Germany is booming, yet some commentators suggest the nation's loss of confidence on the football pitch may mirror economic angst back home.

A shortage of skilled workers, inadequate public investment, a failure to grasp new technologies - these are just some of the criticisms that Germans level at their own economic performance. And at the heart of it is a political crisis over the influx of migrants - something many economists say is sorely needed in this ageing nation.

Anna-Katarina Noryskiewicz reports from Berlin, plus presenter Rob Young speaks to Gabriel Felbermayr, director of the Ifo Centre for International Economics in Germany.

(Picture: A German fan looks dejected following defeat in the 2018 World Cup; Credit: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Harley Davidson and Mid Continent Nail Corp are some of the US employers being hammered by America's escalating tariffs spat with its biggest trade partners.

Manuela Saragosa asks Vanessa, the author of The Girl On A Bike blog, what Harley fans like her make of the company's decision to move some motorcycle manufacturing from the US to Thailand in order to dodge new EU retaliatory tariffs. James Glassman of Mid Continent explains how the blow from the US President's steel import tariffs may flatten his company altogether in a county that voted 79% for Mr Trump. Plus former US trade advisor Pippa Malmgren explains why it may be wrong-headed for her government to try to address the country's perennial trade deficit in the first place.

(Picture: Hammer and nail; Credit: kutaytanir/Getty Images)

Millions of Syrians, including children as young as 10, are employed illegally in Turkish factories and shops - working long hours, underpaid and without insurance or legal rights. There is talk of an entire lost generation of child workers, missing out on school because their families need them to earn.

Ed Butler reports from Istanbul, where he meets a family of garment factory workers who say they are paid less than Turkish colleagues for their 10-12 hour days. He also meets some highly educated professionals, who have been reduced to taking on much lower skilled work since fleeing the civil war in their home country.

But does their plight evoke pity among their Turkish hosts? Or resentment that cheap Syrian labour is undercutting their own wages? And what can be done to improve lives, and get their kids out of work and back into school? Ed visits the Turkish charity Hayata Destek (Support to Life) to get some answers.

Producer: Laurence Knight

(Picture: A young Syrian refugee in Istanbul; Credit: Raddad Jebarah/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Does the US President mix his business with his politics? And is this anything unusual in Washington DC?

Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen, a non-profit watchdog in Washington DC, gives a summarised list of the alleged conflicts of interest of this administration, while Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, explains that contrary to popular expectation, almost none of the best performers among the first 44 US Presidents have been businessmen.

Plus Professor Martin Gilen of Princeton University tells Ed Butler that the evidence suggests that the influence of money over modern US politics has become as great as during the Gilded Age of robber barons of a century ago.

(Picture: Donald Trump at the Trump International Hotel In Washington DC; Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Is kidnapping really that lucrative, and why are some countries, such as Mexico, plagued by the crime?

Ed Butler speaks to one kidnap victim from Mexico City, as well as Ioane Grillo, a journalist based there who has spent years studying the phenomenon. Kidnapping consultant Carlos Seoane explains what to do if you receive that dreaded phone call announcing that a loved one has been taken hostage. And Anja Shortland of Kings College London talks us through the logic behind kidnap insurance.

(Picture: A woman sits on a dirt road near Tijuana in Mexico after crashing her car while fleeing from would-be kidnappers; Credit: The Washington Post/ contributor/Getty Images)

If you have ever bought something in an online shop or been to a restaurant, chances are you’ve read a review for it, apparently written by a customer. And chances are you’ve also spotted more than a few suspicions ones, which stand out for their unqualified and lavish praise while being unusually free of personal details, or perhaps because they appear as a diatribe of awfulness designed to put you off forever. Who wrote those? In fact, there's a whole industry surrounding fake reviews - and it matters because more and more of us are buying things online and relying on other people's online advice to make the right choice. Freelance journalist Oobah Butler talks to us about his entire fake restaurant in London, James Kay, at review site Tripadvisor, tells us how they try to weed out inventions such as Oobah’s and brand reputation consultant Simon Wadsworth lays on tips for consumers and businesses.

(Picture: Customer review rating. Credit: Getty)

Would you invest in North Korea? US President Donald Trump raised the idea at his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. His vision of a private condo on a North Korean beach is probably a long way away, but there are plenty of other countries lacking investment. Paul Domjan, global head of research at Exotix, an investment firm and research agency, explains what a frontier market is.

Byung-Yeon Kim, professor of economics at Seoul National University, tells us how North Korea’s economy works.

(Picture: A woman carries a boxed flat-screen television on her back as she crosses a road in Pyongyang. Credit: Getty Images.)

Colourism is a more insidious form of racism, and harms the prospects of finding work and love for people with darker skin around the world.

Natasha Pizzey reports from Mexico and Daniel Gallas reports from Brazil on the efforts to fight back against the prejudice against skin tone, which often emanates from within the same ethnic community as the victims. Meanwhile, Ed Butler speaks to Sunil Bhatia, a professor of human development at Connecticut College in the US, who has studied the rise of this phenomenon around the world.

(Picture: Two young black women with contrasting skin tones; Credit: PeopleImages/Getty Images)

People queue all night to get filthy notes in a country which is running out of cash. Lesley Curwen visits Harare, the country's capital and talks to those who have to spend all night outside the bank and who then often don't manage to get any cash. And also when they do it's so dirty that it's not accepted outside the country. Plus Monica de Bolle of the Petersen Institute research group in Washington tells Manuela Saragosa about the economic similarities between Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

(Picture: People queue outside a bank in Harare; Credit: Zinyange Auntony/AFP/Getty Images)

The usual western sponsors in this years World Cup have largely been replaced by Asian brands. Why?

FIFA makes most of its money from selling the broadcast rights to the World Cup, and through corporate sponsorship. But this year fans won't be seeing as many of the usual brands they're used to on billboards and adverts. Instead, they'll be seeing a lot of...well, Mongolian yoghurt as Simon Chadwick Professor of Sports Enterprise at Salford University in Manchester tells Manuela Saragosa. She also hears from Toby Hoare, CEO of J Walter Thompson in Europe, a marketing communications company which advises large global clients on how to manage their brands. Plus Sean O'Connor, co-founder of Statsports tells her about the tech players will be wearing this year.

(Picture: A girl standing in front of an advertisement by a Chinese dairy company sponsoring the 2018 Football World Cup, at a subway station in Beijing; Credit: Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images)

As G7 countries gather for trade talks in Quebec, could they gain some tips on how to fight back against the US steel tariffs from one of President Trump's favourite "sports" - WWE pro-wrestling?

Manuela Saragosa gets the views of Financial Times columnist and editor Rana Foroohar, and of William Alan Reinsch of the Washington DC think tank the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Plus Adrienne Murray gathers the rather mixed feelings of Trump voters about the US President's trade tactics in the rusty steel town of Warren, Ohio.

(Picture: Donald Trump pushes WWE chairman Vince McMahon over, in the ring at a Wrestlemania event; Credit: Sam Greenwood/WireImage for World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc)

Zimbabwe is "open for business", claims its new President Emmerson Mnangagwa, but can it finally put its natural resources to good use?

The BBC's Ivana Davidovic reports on the country's diamond sector, which has been a source of popular resentment and corruption, while Vivienne Nunis speaks to the Australian company hoping to develop one of the world's biggest lithium deposits in the country. Back in London, presenter Manuela Saragosa speaks to economist Judith Tyson of the Overseas Development Institute about the country's prospects following the fall of Robert Mugabe.

(Picture: Mine worker with lithium ore; Credit: BBC)