vestas we could be seeing some higher airfares in the not too distant future that's because rising fuel prices are hitting airline profits around the world aviation trade body i.r. this week cut its profit outlook for twenty eight hundred jet fuel prices have surged more than fifty percent over the past year it said trade tensions also pose a risk for global carriers a year ago a blockade by four arab countries on cots are banned its flag carriers jets from their skies and its many heavy losses for the airline andrew thomas met with qatar airways c.e.o. akbar in back in sydney this time last year just before the blockade was announced cattle railways was flying in every sense of the word your profits were up you're expanding new routes then the blockade and it's been a different story since how much has that blockade affected you and the one do you think that cut over stopped flying we are still flying we are still expanding. and it did impact us that it increased our flying time it put pressure on my

operational cost but it did not stop the will and the determination of us to keep on our path of growth and this year actually since the blockade we have received the best airline of the year. we have received over thirty aircraft we have added over nine thousand destinations and we have continued our investments in both. get a perfect and. the impact has only been on my bottom line but not on our determination to keep on continuing but let's talk about the bottom line you made a five hundred million dollar profit in twenty sixteen seventeen you've talked about six hundred thirty four million you've talked about a substantial loss this one out sure how big is that loss going to be and how long is that sustainable those sorts of losses i cannot tell you the amount of the loss because we have still not finished our accounting process but we should be

announcing our losses in not too distant future however we can sustain this losses for the foreseeable future but we cannot sustain these losses if the blockade continues for beyond the horizon that we have in mind so that's the worst case scenario the blockade does carry on long term you're going to need investment from it or a government asset is yes i should not fool anybody we have state owned company the shareholder of that i was is the state of clutter and when there is a requirement for capital injection of course the business will go to its owner asked for capital injection is not likely at the moment i don't think it is likely but i don't know i cannot give you four for certain an answer what about expansion plans of us do you feel you've settled the dispute with the us government by what

you're planning to publish your accounts in full we never had any dispute with the united states we had dispute with the three carriers that were crying foul we have proven to them that we have always been publishing about accounts they had access to our accounts and we had also in the past told them that we have no intention of . carriage zero. europe so at the end of the day they did not get anything more than what we were doing in the past anyway so all this fuss about us getting subsidy and not publishing our accounts was mayor public relations exercise by them to gain support from their unions we feel it's over now i think it is over because we have signed a document with the united states government and the matter has been put to rest and we will continue to deliver on what we have agreed with the government of the united states you've talked in the past about defeating the blockade what would that mean in practice what does defeat mean if it means that they did not meet any

of their targets that they blockaded us to achieve we have not capitulated we have not given into any demands we have continued our growth that has continued to investments but that has continued its normal life and qatar has been very well supplied by qatar as we've got a new secretary of state in the us mark pompei oh very different character to rex tillerson does that change a thing where he already told them that enough is enough so the message is very clear now it is for the international community to put pressure that this should not last any longer if they don't want us to operate into their countries if they don't want trade with our countries it's fine but to blockade a country is against international norms and international civilised behavior which i have said already in the past i am sure that there will be

a time when the united states will part pressure and continuous pressure that this blockade must be lifted immediately. our taking a look at the underbelly of supply chains on the one end you see a bar of chocolate in a shiny wrapping but let's rewind a little bit from the expensive processing and marketing the ivory coast and gone are the world's first and second biggest coca produces and many people there are so poor that they can never afford the final product so the two governments have decided to team up to get a bigger share of the global chocolate profits they say they'll coordinate production levels and sales policies and that could mean the cost of a bar of chocolate will go up candy industry publishes an annual list of the top one hundred global confectionery companies ranking them by net sales in twenty seventeen the american manufacturer mars was ranked as the leading confectionery

company in the world with sales of about eighteen billion u.s. dollars it's a base for a group which makes kinda and the teller came in at number two and mandela's international which makes branded chocolate such as cadbury ranks third net sales coming it at eleven and a half billion dollars last year. well joining us now via skype from davos switzerland is antony fountain managing director of the voice network a coalition of european n.g.o.s and trade unions that focus on sustainable coca thanks very much for being with us so i can assume that you are in favor of what ivory coast and ghana trying to do here in terms of getting a bigger share of the spoils tell us why and why now. in the last year and a half we've seen a major price basis in the cocoa sector that specifically in cote d'ivoire has a devastating results for cocoa farmers they've seen their income reduced by about

thirty thirty seven percent overnight. as far as little bit desperate measures the to take it to the troops the extreme poverty demarco camps. and this is very brutal brutal for governments to say did this the price crash was to a large extent due to production and so did two major go to six nations really should work together to the narrative that there is a higher cocoa price to managing this why that might take some time before those effects start getting in but it is essential that they start moving forward start working to gather and start working on their income for cocoa farms amongst others pricing. how much power do the cocoa produces have here because in terms of taking on the chocolate industry as it currently is they are up against some powerful forces on the other side in the companies. so when you

look at the way prices are set all of that was done through kind of terrible markets very complex set of computers basically looking at what's happening and so that's almost impossible to change but if you look at the fact that governor you are together two thirds of whom of the don't go in the world if they want to and if they make the right interventions they could very much impact. this is ration of the world's cocoa market. at least in the short to medium term that it's a no brainer that if you've got two countries that so much coke of course they can have an impact if they want to. the problem potentially as well though is that you have two countries there who have very different policies when it comes to that to the market they they have different ways about going about it about setting a price and so on how do you get them to cooperate will they started working

together now at least a top level of trying to talk with each other which for the longest time they were direct competitors so kind of these first tentative steps are the first steps the question really is how is this going to work out in the medium to long term and that who are acquiring a lot more trust and they currently have uncertainty very honest i think it also the far more integrity that they'll do the right thing is in the store thanks to both after they try to get a bigger piece of our selves understandably so. but that that that in the economic terms you talk about a zero sum game where one person wins at the other person's last to work that way and they need to work together to get to a better position for their farms from a consumer perspective is this eventually going to mean us pay more for chocolates at the at the sweet shops oh i certainly hope so because currently we're not paying

for what we're buying there's a lot of hidden costs in the chocolate that we buy. that we're simply too cheap to pay for. cost of child labor and for station extreme poverty and the people that are the pharmacist you two generations so i certainly hope that we will end up paying more for chocolate because we're not getting enough now. appreciate you talking to us antony fountain joining us there from davos thanks so much for being with us thank you. and finally it is the first ever meeting between a north korean leader and a sitting u.s. president and anticipation is running high one issue that we north korea will want to discuss is its economy investors believe there will be good times ed if things go well in singapore scott highly reports. all eyes are on singapore for next week's kim summit but what comes after the handshakes and the photos but the singapore based international investment expert he conducted

a business workshop in north korea three years ago it was done through the nonprofit group chosen exchange that has been operating in pyongyang for several years he thinks that if and when north korea reach integrates into the global market it will act as the world's cheapest factory but the process will take years and its biggest china will benefit the most there is no other place in the war like north korea so by definition would be the cheapest place that is would be extremely low or so there would be an interest and maybe from the chinese to produce goods that that he sees north korea's path to be similar to that of one of its asian neighbors to the south we can see the case of myanmar for example where sanctions have belief that the sole companies can operate in the country but so far the main box in that remains china. difficult to operate and the. environment while china has

a huge head start as an investment in trading partner with north korea some other nations are well positioned including the summit's host singapore has maintained diplomatic relations with north korea since one thousand nine hundred seventy five and the nation had been a trading partner with north korea but suspended trade and stopped work permits one tougher un sanctions were imposed occupying prime real estate in central singapore just around the corner from parliament the north korean embassy occupies a few floors in this nondescript building on the heels of meeting u.s. secretary of state mike in washington singapore's foreign minister vivian is in pyongyang this week for an official visit he said having the summit in singapore shows his country is trusted as an honest moderator and the meeting is a contribution to world peace but we won't know until next week just how big or small this contribution might be nor how long it will be before the promises of more prosperous north korea can take hold. and that is our show for this week oh

you can get in touch with us by tweeting me at has. the see when you do or drop us an e-mail counting the cost at al-jazeera dot net is our address in the small few online at c.n.n. dot com slash c.t.c. take you straight to our page which has got individual reports links and entire episodes for you catch up on. that's it for this edition of counting the cost and has a secret from the whole team here thanks for joining us the news on al-jazeera is next. big story it's generating fouls and of headlines with different angles from different perspectives separate the spin from the facts that's why i'm guy. with the listening post on al-jazeera. we have a news gathering team here that is second to their all over the world and they do

a fantastic job when information is coming in very quickly all at once you've got to be able to react to all of the changes and al-jazeera we adapt to them. my job is is to break it all down and we help give you understand and make sense of it. on october the sixth one thousand nine hundred seventy three when muslims were observing ramadan and jews were celebrating young people. egypt and syria known to surprise war against israel carter who's world promoter so to get into this situation of disaster now in the first of the three part series al-jazeera explores what really happened during the first week of the war in october on al-jazeera.

al-jazeera. where ever you are. this is al-jazeera. a lot so robin you're watching the al-jazeera news headquarters here in doha coming up in the next sixty minutes a surprise proposal from president trump like russia back into the g. seven. and there's another summit taking place on the other side of the world xi

jinping welcomes his best friend like amir putin. also five days after months wake up dead in guatemala evacuations continue and the death toll is still rising. and the international criminal court a war crimes conviction is overturned. welcome to the news our world leaders are in canada for what's already looking like a tense g. seven summit as he left washington for quebec u.s. president donald trump told reporters that russia should be readmitted to the group moscow was expelled in twenty fourteen over it's an extension of crimea trump suggestion did not go down very well i would give somebody new will cut off the steamer we discussed a topic and we agreed that a return by russia to the g. seven format cannot happen as long as there isn't any substantial progress in

regard to the problems with ukraine russia is far from the only issue where trump and the other g seven leaders disagree trump's plan to impose tariffs on steel and alimony imports from the e.u. mexico and canada has increased tension between him and the rest of the group but after meeting with canada's prime minister he took a surprisingly conciliatory tone. justin has agreed to cut all the terrorists will trade barriers between canada and the united states so i'm very happy i say daft is in good shape we are actually watching and we are actually working on it but our relationship is very good we are actually working on cutting tariffs and making it all very fair for both countries and we've made a lot of progress today we'll see how it all works out but we've made a lot of us still counted as foreign minister remained what she calls the illegal us tariffs on trump himself plans to leave the summit early skipping most of such

today's meetings well let's cross over to john hundred now who's in quebec city force behind the smiles hold the family photo to seem to be holding back with gritted teeth before the doors close and they really start to talk business. that's right so it looked so cooperative all seven world leaders together and one picture but it was really a show of unity in a fractured family emanuel mccrone and justin trudeau had met a day earlier and they were talking about how they hoped to persuade president donald trump to drop the u.s. tariffs on steel and aluminum that have all of the members of the g seven all the other members. on one side and critical of the u.s. . and trump had been making statements just this morning at the white house he was rather critical of the trade practices of canada in europe in a tweet storm yesterday he also a sailboat's two leaders by name and then as they met today they shook hands and

there were smiles and they were vague promises that they would come to some kind of agreement but with one day to go and with trump leaving early it's not clear that any agreement will be made at all usually there's a statement at the end of the it'll be interesting to see what's on that of course you talk about stay. of course that the statement seems to be ringing for all of us is that quote the relationship is better than ever he must be living in a parallel universe. yeah i suppose the polite way to say that would be if it's hyperbole the. more impolite way might be it's delusion all these guys have been going at it with each other there have been really aggressive statements made on both sides and trump has been pretty harsh that idea the suggestion of bringing russia into an expanded g. eight seems to just be another way for him to try to disrupt

a group who knows he's against that the only person who believed it that was possibly a good idea was the the new italian prime minister jews epicanthic and they were in a group of two verses five who say absolutely not in the canadian foreign minister was very clear on that and of course that you just touched upon the fact that the communique might not be signed by trump would still look sure about that i mean what are the ramifications of one of those all of those leaders not sort of agreeing to a final communique what does that sort of was an impact does that have in the long . this really reveals the rift in the g seven right now this is usually a formality they all sign a statement at the end of that state and says these are the things we all agree to these are the things we all believe in this year it was expected to be a celebration of the global economic expansion so it seemed as if they all had something to agree on and then trump instituted these tariffs shortly before this

meeting and that really changed everything now trump arrived a little late he's going to be leaving at ten thirty in the morning local time and the meeting will continue to go on until five o'clock so it's unclear whether they will come to some agreement that he can sign by that time if so whether it would mention trade or whether it would just be a laundry list of sort of smaller goals they all agree on and what that does is it it shows disunity in the g seven that makes stock markets nervous. and it took jess step it up but guess what the it isn't. in the part because it lost john there the and by that we got a general gist that stock markets may get a g. seven communiques not signed by everyone which we'll see in the coming hours but moving on the u.s. says the chinese government hackers have stolen large amounts of highly sensitive data about its submarine technology now the washington post reports the breaches

took place at the beginning of the year the hackers are believed to have detained secret u.s. navy plans to develop a supersonic anti ship misato by twenty twenty now the news comes as the trumpet ministration seeks china's support in persuading north korea to denuclearize. meanwhile russian president vladimir putin has been in beijing announcing trade and investment agreements with his chinese counterpart putin was given a medal by xi jinping who called the russian leader his best friend florence louis reports from beijing. a friendship medal for russian president vladimir putin awarded for what china says is putin's outstanding contribution to china's development. it's a sign of ever closer ties between the two men and the two countries both announced several business deals including a joint investment fund in projects in china and russia the closer relationship

comes at a time when tensions with the u.s. have increased both the russians and chinese have been sidelined from tuesday's planned summit between trump and kim jong il despite that both are keen to show they retain influence over north korea. but i see you've seen two sort of we talked about the korean peninsula issue russia and china both want to see the korean peninsula and north east in asia enjoy the peace we are happy to see that the current negotiation process between the d.p. r. k. and the u.s. is in the framework of the roadmap initiated by russia and china in recent communications pyongyang confirmed to us it will carry out constructive cooperation in the denuclearization. a close ally its benefits both russia and china russia has accused of meddling in trumps election and faces sanctions for annexing crimea. chinese and american negotiators are trying to avoid a trade war and china has been criticized and challenged by the u.s.

for its increasingly aggressive moves in staking territorial claims in the south china sea the meeting between china and russia displays of friendship between she and put it all in the words of the russian president in the spirit of overarching strategic partnership a partnership between countries that the u.s. calls economic rivals the agreement signed on friday go a long way in strengthening that partnership florence to beijing. thousands of people across the middle east and south asia are marking could stay in jerusalem day they've been demonstrating in various pakistani cities in baghdad damascus and tehran the annual event is a protest against israel's rule of jerusalem iran says it's a day to express support for the palestinians and emphasize the importance of jerusalem for muslims. not for palestinians including a fifteen year old boy has been killed or the israeli forces fired live rounds and

tear gas at protesters near the gaza border the palestinian health ministry says more than six hundred others have been injured in the violence israel says the action was taken after kites carrying explosives were flown near the fence israeli forces have killed at least one hundred nineteen palestinians in demonstrations which began in late march hamas leader ismail haniyeh says protests will continue until the israeli blockade and it's. more than enough past we are ready to deal positively with any real initiative to end the siege completely on the gaza strip but not at the expense of the palestinian cause our resistance is related to the march of return and to breaking the siege the marches will continue until we achieve our goals firstly breaking the siege on the gaza strip and one car has more from the gaza israel border. as you can see the palestinians are burning tires just over there close to the israeli buffer zone now every so often the israelis fire

off a volley of tear gas they're using this in two different ways firstly coming in from jeeps to give them a height on the take gas comes down into the crowd trying to spurs them clearly it's not working the crowd are still there but they're also using tear gas drones as well which is a fairly recent development however the palestinians figured out a way of dealing with can you see the kites just up there they're becoming a bit of a problem for the israelis there effectively a toy but the palestinians figured out that they can in tangle a drone into those kites they've actually done that and they've managed to bring down an israeli take astro and so that's something the israelis are going to be concerned about now this protest has begun slightly earlier in the day than the regular friday protests that's because of al could state that was started effectively means to recent days but it was started by the iranians after the islamic revolution in one nine hundred seventy nine but it means something quite a lot to the palestinians as well and that's why they come to this border however

the protest organizing committees did ask the protesters not to go too close to the border to the buffer zone as they have done in the past and they've said stay away from the border we want to try and avoid casualties however the palestinians have turned up as you can see in great numbers not only to commemorate al could stay but to tell you to show the world that they are against the israeli siege israeli led siege of gaza the palestinian ambassador to the united nations says his office is working to ensure a u.n. resolution is passed to give palestinians protection from illegal use of force. we will not relent in our quest to try to find ways to provide protection for the civilian population because it is our duty it is the right thing to do and it is the thing that the palestinian people including those in the gaza strip and in occupied east jerusalem they need and we determined to do everything that we can in order to provide.