paul the very good men are gathering all over capitol hill it's a beautiful thing to see he continues and they are not paid professional protesters who are handed expensive signs big day for america this bitter nomination process could have a major impact on the mid-term elections that take place next month an opportunity for democrats to claw back a majority in both the house and the senate. but even this would not change a simple stark fact with this second successful confirmation president trump has pushed the center of the court firmly to the right by kana al-jazeera washington and his president speaking at a rally in kansas about cavernous confirmation. just a few hours ago the u.s. senate confirmed. it was.

above i groggily hsiang the judges commission. air force one just before landing. to indonesia where flattened neighborhoods the way sea island may soon be declared mass graves the search for those missing after last week's earthquake and tsunami continues president joe kubert daughter says all victims must be found but so far the rescue operations been slow and difficult as machines live pictures here they are working away here but in a lot of areas the strength of the earthquake actually transformed hard ground into mud it makes rescue difficult for those machines more than six hundred people are confirmed dead and there are growing concerns about the outbreak of disease well in

and around apollo the operation is in full swing diandra thomas joined a convoy of helicopters from indonesia disaster management authority which was the first to reach a remote mountain village kopi korto inaccessible by road. for more than a week they have been isolated cut off by cracked and blocked mountain roads so for the people of p.p. kora the sights of two helicopters bringing relief aid and news was thrilling they have not yet restarted helicopters coming in doubt and they knew it would be bringing help for us there's never a mobile phone coverage here so into the easiest disaster response team had no idea what they'd find the information was positive the earthquake was strong here but there were no deaths and no serious injuries it's all the rush of people coming down that hill to this book full field as the two helicopters we came in landed

there isn't that much damage and they spent each what they needed things that normally come in by road villages needed rice medicines baby milk and fuel and one biscuits i mean i know minimum of a hundred but we need a doctor to know there is a little clinic here but a nurse runs dot's was in power last week we need to get her back. that he kept and this was just twenty five minutes on the ground before heading back to pollute on route experts from indonesia's disaster management authority looked down to see what other areas most obviously need help we saw landslides which had reshaped mountains and obliterated roads but no destruction of homes on the scale of the tim pollard. on the outskirts of that city the full scale of the liquefaction which it swallowed suburbs was clear. aid is now pouring into the way the activity of poly weapons is frenetic and as you see it now so many helicopters

here a lot of a logistics support our economy it's still very much needed andrew thomas al-jazeera. south of. the u.s. secretary of state mike pompei is on his way to pyongyang for more talks on art of achieve a nuclear free north korea it will be fourth trip to the north capital this year in its second round of talks with leader kim jong un the us wants progress in the effort to rid the korean peninsula of nuclear weapons after kim said he would work towards denuclearization during the singapore summit with donald trump back in june still ahead for you here on al-jazeera three days of mourning announced in the democratic republic of congo after a deadly accident killed at least fifty people and going going gone the british street artist banksy makes art history with his most daring stunt yet.

how the temperature contrasts are crossed the u.s. maintains itself you may be can't see from this except this is the clue when you get a line of something white developing usually storms that's a good division attempt as in the moment we have got the warmth to the south and a long way east was in washington thirty degrees even ottawa's up at thirteen degrees so is the line of the temperatures changes on this side you see snow it's up on the high ground utah wyoming idaho that sort of area but that snow itself shows much colder air which may well come a bit further south than following twenty four hours but time to get to monday for example it's still snowing yet there it is and it's still raining hard not division in temperatures a twenty eight in the sunshine in washington or contrast in to in calgary back on the pacific coast pretty woman san francisco too and still the potential for showers exists as far south and south california arizona. go down towards the gulf

of mexico in the caribbean this really reflects a thing called the itc's it was the line of rain around the world it's not a complete come from sea has a bit of a dog right across guatemala nicaragua and el salvador in that area the right has been persistent and will continue. on counting the cost this week why people in brazil feel that the next president can't save the economy and what that means for the rest of latin america and drugs the bunny why the world's big drug companies charge such high prices for their prescription pharmaceuticals counting the cost on al-jazeera. i already felt liberated as a journalist was. getting to the truth as an eyewitness that's what is.

top stories for you here at al-jazeera this hour sources have told us that a prominent saudi journalist may have been murdered inside his country's consulate in istanbul turkey as prosecutors are widening their investigation into the disappearance of jamal khashoggi was last seen entering the saudi consulate on tuesday. but cavanagh president trump's supreme court pick has been sworn in after a contentious senate vote followed thirteen hours of intense debate for and against the candidate who was subject to an f.b.i. investigation into sexual assault allegations and flattened neighborhoods in

indonesia to the way sea island may soon be declared mass graves following last week's earthquake and tsunami more than sixteen hundred people are confirmed dead and there are growing concerns about an operation to see its. at least fifty people have been killed one hundred others have suffered serious burns when a fuel tanker collided with a vehicle in the democratic republic of congo happened in the town of q some too close to the capital kinshasa president joseph kabila has now announced three days of national mourning victoria gay should be as the story. it was early on saturday morning when an oil tanker collided with another vehicle on a busy highway near the town of consent to villages rushed to the scene to collect leaking fuel what happened next has left a community devastated. it was horrible to crash the. villagers went to collect the petrol the accident then an explosion happens many

people were killed. just a man gambas son was badly burned and died in hospital in the. us my boy i was waiting to travel to can shots up early in the morning when all of this happened hospital officials informed me that my boy is among those who died. other relatives have gathered outside the only hospital in consent to waiting for the news among them a mother of five his desperate to know what's happened to her children that this is one. of my five children three are missing this is why i'm here to find out whether they are being treated by medical staff or if they have died. to additional supplies of medicine have been delivered to overstretch doctors and nurses the most seriously injured patients are being transferred to the capital with tb the hospital. later think they are richer. never cease to be the theme of the emergency for nothing. i came with them but if you believe your husband or you know

they're working together to sever that these things and then to organize the trust of the nation you know that the city is the. roads in the central african nation on a tourist sleep bad after years of war neglect witnesses say in the aftermath of the crash there wasn't enough ambulances to take the injured to hospital victoria gates and be. syria's rebels are withdrawing heavy weaponry from an area in north western province this buffer zone a part of a joint plan by russia and turkey gets a vote at a massive assault by government forces on the rebel stronghold the deal requires armed fighters within the demilitarized zone withdraw all the heavy weapons by october tenth. israel has imposed new restrictions on guns or in reaction to protests along the border israel's defense minister has ordered the operating zone for gaza fishermen to be scaled down from nine to six nautical miles i've been

threatened further measures if what he called violent incidents continue israeli forces have killed at least one hundred eighty three palestinians since the weekly protests began back in march. people have been protesting in brazil in a final push against the far right presidential candidates. forces head to the polls on sunday in elections that are being described as the most fractious in the history of brazilian democracy to rise about with more from. the north tame sang his women and men on the streets of sao paulo such they're asking the undecided voters to vote for anyone except. the former army captain who is leading the presidential race in brazil i am. sexist. it's like the new hitler in the twenty first century thirteen candidates are running for brazil's president cd but poll say it's become a two man race between worlds and fat man the lie that the who replaced former

president. as the workers' party candidate. says that evolutionary selected people like her will be at risk her whole family took to the streets to support how that's campaign but that things were different when lula was in power we had schools my son is a professor now because he went to school. opportunities to the people and her dad will continue this policy you. know it's all over. serving a twelve year sentence for corruption was banned from running the workers' party strategy to help fight amount of that to win this election has been to say that voting for him is like voting for results home or resident eleven feet off the problem is that bad strategy didn't work in many parts of the country where people are furious with the corruption that happened while the workers' party was in power . in spite of the criticism from some adults numbers have continued to rise since

he was stabbed early in september even among those who once voted for. has expressed his admiration for. brazil's former dictatorship wants of beleaguered tory birth control for poor people and once brazil out of the un because he says it's run by communists and really says he will vote for him but this is a gamble this is what i'm certain that the change in brazil a new attitude and a new political structure we have to burnish to corrupt politicians analysts say there's a reason why wilson at us popularity has radically increased in the past month this attack on both of. which. was a shock for the country but the most important thing was that both now had free time not as an advertiser but in the in the headlines he was always

in the new. even the tornado me when this election round poll suggests he will have to go to a second round in the ballots it is then when people whole center left parties will unite against the one man they see as a threat. begun pseudos of voting on whether to change the constitution to ban same sex marriage the voters raised concerns that nontraditional families would be discriminated against a conservative group initiated the referendum and the influential romanian orthodox church is backing it saying it protects the status of the court traditional family now a ban on traveling by road braille and air has come into force in cameroon ahead of presidential elections on sunday the country's been wracked by violence uprising by separatists who want independence for the english speaking regions and threaten to disrupt the vote eighty five year old president has been in power for thirty six

years he is up against eight other candidates from a divided opposition. pakistan's opposition leadership been jailed for ten days for alleged links to a housing scam and twenty fourteen sharif was arrested on friday in lahore his detention means he won't be able to campaign ahead of byelection next week hundreds of activists from his pakistan muslim league no wild party gathered in support outside the court he is the brother of the former prime minister now as sharif who was released on bail last month as the appeals his conviction on separate corruption charges. at least twenty three endangered asian lions have died in the past three weeks in a national park in western india park conservationists say in fighting a rare virus with a main cause as for the deaths india's government is being urged to take immediate steps to save the remaining animals about thirty of the last remaining five hundred lions are in isolation undergoing tests the british street artist banksy

has stunned the art world with a daring act of self-destruction it's not him actually but it's one of his best known pieces which was sold at auction and then well watch this from. your movie. critics. the crowd at london auctioneers suburbs can't believe what's just happened at work by banks has just been sold for one point three million dollars but at the same time a device inside the picture frame has partially shredded it leaving some but mused others in it i mean i think we need this kind of shake. it shakes the whole thing the little bit is you know we thought you know both of these . stories for the notes you. this is what gill with blue used to look like she first appeared on a wall in east london but this gallery version was a canvas mounted on a board so the bees say the successful phone but it was surprised by the story and

they're in discussion about the next steps but experts say thanks to the stunt the pictures market value has already shot up. banksy who hides his identity started out small scale in the city of bristol but has since gone worldwide from this program few g.'s piece in cali featuring apple co-founder steve jobs to this art hotel in the occupied west bank. and last year two images appeared near london's barbican cultural complex then are protected behind a film of plastic bank fees were inspired by the work of your michelle who had an exhibition here at the barbecue but there's also a bit of politics you can read say no to street art banksy claiming that the institution was generally more keen to get rid of graffiti in the area you can still see small rodents like this done by banksy at various spots around the capital some people might smell a rat with the latest stunt perhaps it's what banks he's always been about staying

in the spotlight while keeping everyone guessing the barber al-jazeera london. funny the renowned opera singer whose duet with freddie mercury became the anthem of the nine hundred ninety two olympics games has died aged eighty five. the soprano was admitted to hospital in barcelona last month and died early on saturday morning her family has requested her cause of death not be released and mercury's duet helped introduce her to a new generation. here with al-jazeera and these are the headlines sources have told us that a prominent saudi journalist may have been murdered inside his country's consulate in istanbul turkey prosecutors a widening their investigation into the disappearance of jamal khashoggi who was last seen entering the saudi consulate on tuesday of the reuters news agency says

a source of the consulate has denied reports he was killed in the compound. with more from istanbul. turkish security officials are now dealing with the case of. a murder investigation late on saturday they had said that they had information that fifteen saudi nationals among them officials had flown in on tuesday on two separate flights had gone to the consulate the same time that the cultural issue was there and then the had left till now there has been no disclosure of the whereabouts of his body yet the headlines brett kavanaugh president trumps supreme court pick has been sworn in after a contentious senate vote followed thirty hours of intense debate for and against the candidate who was subject to an f.b.i. investigation into sexual assault allegations made against him by three women and these were the protests in washington d.c. in response to the senate's confirmation of cavanagh demonstrators angry over those

accusations of sexual assault. flats in neighborhoods in indonesia's sort of a sea island may soon be declared mass graves following last week's earthquake and tsunami more than sixteen hundred people are confirmed dead there are growing concerns about the outbreak of disease syria's rebels are withdrawing heavy weaponry from an area in northwestern province the buffer zone as part of a joint plan by russia and turkey aiming to prevent a massive assault by government forces on the rebel stronghold the deal requires armed fighters within the demilitarized zone withdraw their heavy weapons by october the tenth. and brazil is gearing up for what's being described as the most divisive election in its democratic history and action officials have distributed ballot boots and electronic voting machines ahead of sunday's vote some one hundred forty seven million voters will choose from thirteen candidates pollsters however say it's highly likely none of them would reach the fifty percent threshold

necessary for victory which would mean a runoff vote later in the month and those are your headlines counting the cost is next. the nobel committee has announced the joint witness of this year's peace prize denis mukwege and not to move. al-jazeera has been granted the exclusive international rights to interview the winners after the awards ceremony here in oslo in december the nobel interview on al-jazeera. hello i'm adrian finighan this is counting the cost on al-jazeera a weekly look at the world of business and economics this week brazilians fear the next president can't save the economy find out what that means for the rest of latin america also this week drugs money why the world's big pharmaceutical companies charge such high prices for life saving pills. plus

a new minimum wage at amazon but some say the trillion dollar company must do better. now when the national museum of brazil tragically went up in flames last month many saw it as a metaphor for their own struggles this is a country where there is widespread unhappiness at the deteriorating quality of life inequality is one of the problems brazil's six richest men have the same wealth as the poorest fifty percent of the population that's around one hundred million people according to walks from international rampant corruption is another issue among tea billion dollar bribery probe called love a jato or car wash highlighted the kind of special treatment given to the few reform is now needed to bring down debts to tackle violence and fix the unjust public sector pension system civil servants often retire in the early fifty's on full pay yet those born in full veil as well without access to basic services and

zeros to see a new human has this report from northeast in brazil. sixty five year old mother. can't read or write or even sign her name but what she does know is how to work. i started working in tobacco fields when i was nine my father had died and my mother couldn't make ends meet. the story is repeated in the nearby sugar fields generation after generation men work under the merciless sun of northeastern state . i started when i was stand i'm forty four now i couldn't find any better job my father did decide never went to school but my son does. i hope he will be able to get a better job because this is no way to live. in northeastern brazil is heavily

populated which makes it a magnet for politicians seeking election help in this slum there's no sewerage running water or other basic services sixty percent of the people here are not live in poverty their needs are so great and their pockets so empty that they are easy prey during election time for politicians they can come here and buy their votes for as little as ten dollars. with india that is a catholic deacon who works in the slum appropriately named after the virgin of the poor seventy percent of residents are illiterate. of course if i'm a politician and i give culture an education to people i'm in pairing them and if i'm in pairing them they may not vote for me so that's why it's in their interest to keep things as they are because then they can just keep coming back here at election time with empty promises that people grasp onto. in the north east as in

the rest of brazil blacks in mixed race are the most disenfranchised. it's a vicious circle of inequality aggravated by a severe recession and government austerity that's left thirteen million brazilians unemployed and even more living in extreme poverty with the boom this economist says a chronic structural problem is to blame most them we will stop medium and long term development goals for our country investing infrastructure health education and job creation that requires political coordination that always eludes us no matter who is in government. and even if the decks government can start the recovery process those living here at the bottom of the social ladder will be the last to benefit. joining us now from london is edward glossop edward is the last of america economist at capital economics edward good to have you with us on counting the cost again if the incoming administration of brazil can't fix the system is this going to lead to a financial crisis well i think it's it's probably not really it's

a financial crisis i mean i think obviously. argentina's fiscal crisis is much more acute because the government has large effects debts and brazil's case a lot of the government's debt is held in local currencies which really limits the risks it's about argentina's economy the problems the how important though is brazil to latin america's economy and even to the global economy well it's by far the biggest country in the region but i think it's worth noting actually that brazil is fundamentally quite a closed economy so it's worth noting that the rest of the region can still do relatively well in terms of economic growth even if brazil is stuck in a slump and so what needs to be done to put brazil's economy back on track well i think the main thing that investors are looking for is pension reform and deep fiscal reform i think there needs to be a big pension reform that president tanner struggled to put. and i think future governments will struggle to push this through too because it's highly unpopular

with the electorate and also the reform requires three fifth's majority in congress and brazil's congress is it massively five mounted this twenty eight political parties in there it's going to be very difficult to push that kind of unpopular form through congress ok so if they can't get pension reform what else can they get through well they can probably get through some spending cuts which will help to narrow the budget deficit and tie things over if you like for that in the coming years but sooner or later you need some structural fiscal reform to really bring in that budget deficit a lot you know. to sustainable levels of you know two three percent of g.d.p. and that looks very unlikely without crisis further down the line brazil of course the world's biggest producer of coffee and sugar water prospects for commodities growth helping the brazilian economy yes good question i mean i think brazil is

fundamentally a commodity producer obviously i would call for prices will play a role in determining brazil's terms of trade which therefore plays a big role and how well the economy is doing overall in terms of its domestic demand and the cups economics we will probably see commodity prices falling back a bit from here which will probably filter through into we could go from brazil over the coming years it will be added headwind not just for brazil but for the rest of the economy for the region too because latin america is hard and then on commodities and given the good the almost universal ownership of mobile phones the use of digital technology facebook and twitter can the digital economy in brazil help to bring it out of to pull it out of recession. possibly i mean it seems very unlikely i think what we see in places like brazil is the. things like the digital economy are very much and will play in future

a much bigger role in places like china in asia where as i said before investment rates are very high so these economies are better placed to actually invest in this new technology in the digital economy which can therefore help these colonist produce stronger growth in places like brazil you really need to get overall economy investment in order to really reach the fruits of the digital economy and with things like. the business environment is still quite bad and the pension system is very generous which means that domestic savings are very low there's no incentive to save domestically and therefore the investment rate in the economy is too low so i think that this issue economy will obviously grow in importance in brazil but it's not going to make a driver of growth anytime soon or of here's the rub as a lot of america economist are you optimistic about the prospects for brazil in the short to medium term over the next year i think the cyclical recovery probably has further to run i mean we look at the business and consumer confidence indicator is

still pointing upwards not should help domestic demand to stay strong over the next three to six months or so beyond i would say probably more bearish the most on the prospects potential growth is probably around two percent which is very weak for for an emerging market of brazil size and that was all income level it would be good to talk to you but he thanks indeed for being with us. well as you're hearing the resilience of pretty active on social media brazil is facebook's third biggest market whatsapp says it has one hundred twenty million users in a country of two hundred million people online platforms keen to protect themselves have stepped up deletion of fake accounts in brazil bought our computer programs which can be automated to carry out tasks we use them in search engines but they're also used to spread false information and to mimic human uses online unlist say that the twenty eighteen election in brazil will be an important reference point

for the country and its relationship with social media still to come on counting the cost the tax man cometh find out what a chinese film star called friend been buying and u.s. president donald trump have in common. but first one of america's largest employers is raising pay for its workers amazon says its workers in the u.s. will be paid a minimum of fifteen dollars an hour from next month and workers in the u.k. will also get a raise now in the past the company has been criticized for its labor practices including on the paying workers thirty kohei in reports. america has a problem the divide between those with the least and those with the most is growing and the gap is just getting wider the economy is doing well but wages are not rising that statistic might soon see a bump one of america's largest employers amazon has announced that everyone who

helped send the smiling boxes around the country will soon be paid more at a minimum fifteen dollars an hour more than double the national minimum wage it's not cheap it's going to cost them a billion dollars i think per year it's not that they're able to raise prices or pass it through to customers this is something their shareholders are going to fund but i think that a lot of amazon shareholders think this is the right thing to do that's what amazon said was behind the move it was the right thing to do but it's also facing a lot of criticism in large part because of its founder jeff bezos he is the richest man in the world worth one hundred sixty five billion dollars breaking that down he makes about two hundred seventy five million dollars each and every day and amazon is hugely profitable in the second quarter of this year it had a profit of two point five billion dollars so we can afford the raises and with low unemployment it might have to pay more to get enough workers to move their

merchandise still the race is being praised by amazon's toughest critics what mr baseball is today has done is not only enormously important for amazon's hundreds of thousands of employees it could well be and i think it will be a shot heard around the world not every economist things pay workers more will actually help decrease income inequality on the one hand yes workers in amazon will benefit from this this increase in basic pay but in the longer term amazon is exactly the type of company which we don't match and would. investing automation i would be much more difficult for other companies traditional retailers to match this kind of offer america can often seem like two different countries divided between the haves and have nots economists will be watching to see if amazon's move does anything to heal the divide. now to the middle east.