stock market index in riyadh fell more than one point as much as seven percent of sunday with billions of dollars wiped off market value of leading saudi companies mike hanna has more from washington d.c. the saudi stock market suffered its biggest fall in years following president trump's warning it recovered slightly during the day but it was the first tangible sign of the impact of this crisis on the saudi condominium. and impact too on the once cozy relationship between the trumpet ministration and saudi leaders a statement released by the saudi news agency threatening global retaliation against any sanction came just hours after president trump spoke of severe punishment that saudi arabia proved complicit in jamal khashoggi his disappearance . no doubt among members of congress that this should involve economic sanction despite president trump stated reluctance for such measures so i would just say this to you or for confidence if this is proven to be true there is going to be

a response from congress it's going to be nearly unanimous it's going to be swift and it's going to go pretty far and that could include arms sales but it could include a bunch of other things as well european leaders to making clear they will not stand by they must have seen the huge international concern from the united states now from britain france and germany what they need to do is to cooperate fully with the investigation that the turks are asking us to do and to get about all this and if as they say this this terrible murder didn't happen then where is jamal khashoggi and that's what the world wants to know here a former cia director casting doubt to the vehement saudi denials of him told them and their denials ring hollow very much for a hollow to go after a permanent resident states who writes for the washington post and doing it on foreign soil as a diplomatic mission to me would be inconceivable that such an operation would be run by the saudis without the knowledge of the day to day decision maker of saudi

arabia that's crown prince mom been said. in an apparent bid to diffuse the tension the saudi foreign ministry has released a tweet thanking the u.s. and others for refraining from jumping to conclusions despite this though a relationship that was once so warm is along with the saudi stock market reaching a new low mike hanna is here or washington but ford's chairman bill ford has become the latest corporate figure to back out of a saudi investment conference later this month warner on the economic fallout for saudi arabia his under. the largest stock market in the middle east suffered its biggest fall for four years within hours of donald trump ramping up the pressure on the saudis. the to double in the saudi capital riyadh fell almost seven percent as it opened on sunday morning that wiped out all its gains made this year before

recovering to close three and a half percent down we're going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment investors reacted to the warnings by donald trump who's made it clear that the kingdom will be severely punished if it's behind the disappearance and apparent murder of washington post contributor jamal khashoggi to a saudi arabia rejects both the accusations of involvement and threats of punishment and is promising to retaliate against any sanctions with bigger ones of its own to seems to be more questions than answers those comments will do little to settle investors' nerves as business leaders and media sponsors take a step back from saudi arabia's so-called reform agenda the president of the world bank is among several influential leaders who've already said they won't attend a key investment conference in riyadh next week dubbed davos of the desert it's aimed everything telling the kingdom into its latest vision for the future but goober's absence may be noticed the most since the saudis have invested billions of

dollars in the u.s. right hailing company a lot of big names and a lot of big media organizations have pulled out so does this not this is not good on the whole basis of the vision twenty thirty the very forward looking economic policy to bring saudi arabia we need it off oil bring it into the twenty first century really depends on working with foreign partners and getting investment in that i don't think that will pull out completely but right now it's to talk sic the u.s. treasury secretary steve minutia is under pressure from u.s. senators not to go but the trumpet ministration wants to maintain billions of dollars worth of weapons orders and the u.s. jobs that go with them when the saudi crown prince visited the white house trying presented the kingdom shopping list as one of his crowning achievements and or chapell al-jazeera. let's speak to submission in norman oklahoma via skype he's a professor of middle eastern politics at the university of oklahoma good to have

you with us on al-jazeera we spoke in recent days the retaliation or punishment the u.s. could inflict on saudi if they were found guilty of shows he's met a the saudis have pushed back as we suggested they might what sort of leverage do they really have against the u.s. and other countries if they do find themselves facing punitive sanctions well it's mostly bluster because any kind of retaliatory action would really be damaging to saudi arabia in different ways i mean clearly the they are major arms purchasers are the second largest arms purchasers in the world after india and they buy arms from many countries particularly the united states but also european countries so they could suspend future or arms purchases they also as they did with the spat with canada several weeks ago they could put a freeze on all future economic dealings and so on and there are other measures to it in the canada case they withdrew so the students studying in canada because

there are there were thousands of them and there are tens of thousands of them here in the united states they could you many of those things and i don't think they will i think it's mostly bluster and as i said it would be self damaging ok well in terms of bluster i mean trump was afraid of losing this military order with millions of dollars i mean would saudi consider counseling it because i mean there would be repercussions or is it sort of just saber rattling because there is this issue of perhaps china and russia looking on from a distance thinking well perhaps we could have a piece of the pie but do we want to be touching such a toxic case at the moment. yes well there are a number of issues there i mean as you have implied it as your piece set up president trump does not want to cancel this arms sales for all different kinds of reasons and the saudis also want to go through i don't think china and russia would hesitate for a seconds to take the place of the united states as the leading arms supplier to

saudi arabia but again there are costs and some are not necessarily apparent that would go with something like that saudi officers many of them are trained in the united states and some in western europe there are military is geared to those kinds of arms switching out sophisticated weapons systems all of a sudden for russian made were chinese made weapons causes all kinds of problems having to do with ensure operability and training and maintenance and so on so this is not as easy as simply mohammed bin some months making it a situation snapping rules fingers and going forward there are real costs involved but there really are pressures on that on the white house to sort of curb these arms sales to countries like saudi who are in the midst of a conflict as we know in yemen and if this issue regarding khashoggi is confirmed the sort of state sponsored murder is something that many u.s. politicians from across the board do not want that country to be associated with.

well that's exactly right and there are senators republicans and democrats congresspeople republicans and democrats across the country who have said as much so they are interested in not only canceling the arms deal if it is proven that mr fischer she was murdered and also taking other kinds of sanctions and i think this really gets at something your piece mentioned which is what are the long term implications potentially on the saudi economy and on confidence in the saudi economy as a place for investment i mean it's clearly a huge economy and there's a spaces for people to make money and companies will do so but if there are real questions about these kinds of issues and so on the net is going to lead not only that members but many others to think twice and three times about investing a dollar in saudi arabia that's just such a that you know you talk about the financial markets we mentioned in our report now they tumbled over the weekend business leaders from across the board and companies

are pulling out of what is generally called the davos in the sand conference happening in saudi in the next few weeks how does saudi arabia plug what you might call they slow leak they would want to very clear resolution to this scenario sooner rather than later. yes well they have dug themselves into a hole and it is very difficult for them to get out of it now there are opportunities i mean that mr airline and the turkish government have talked about some kind of a joint investigative committee now again all of this is assuming i think correctly that mr show she ceased a very bad state and so on but there are ways to try to massage the situation far as the saudis are concerned to appear to cooperate and so on to reduce the pressure in the long term but i think that there's very little weight as it's impossible for them to get out of this problem completely and there are going to be economic and

political costs this course of course will be keeping an eye on the story sunny for the forseeable future for the moments mischa thanks for joining us from oklahoma thank you plenty more here on the al-jazeera news hour including with the u.s. midterm elections only a few weeks away we'll look at some of the economic issues in the campaign also somalia's prime minister calls for unity at a ceremony remembering the victims of last year's massive bombing in market issue. of a joke of it keeps winning the feeling in shanghai about it's on the way in sport but . these top negotiator on breaks it says disagreement over the irish border remains a key obstacle to a deal despite intensified discussions with officials earlier ambassadors from twenty seven european union member states were summoned to a meeting in brussels to discuss the u.k.'s departure from the blog the sudden call

to gather had spot reports about a deal between the e.u. and the united kingdom britain is due to leave the e.u. in march but negotiations have been stalled for months needs barca has the latest from london. after a flurry of activity in brussels over the course of sunday hopes for breaks that deal remain some way off yet there have been some reports that the e.u.'s twenty seven ambassadors have been summoned to brussels primarily to take an early look at a done deal but it wasn't to be michel bonnie a the e.u.'s negotiator saying that more work needed to be done the british are being under tremendous amount of pressure from the e.u. to hold more face to face talks and that probably explains why dominic route britain's bric secretary rushed a short notice for an unshared childer meeting with his european counterparts but more work more progress is yet to be achieved when it comes to finding a solution to the dispute over what's going to happen to the border between

northern ireland and the republic of ireland perhaps the thorniest issue it breaks it negotiations as they currently stand in the absence of any plan from the british government the e.u. are insisting on its back stop plan that would essentially leads to northern ireland a part of the u.k. remaining in the e.u. customs union that plans being rejected by the british government and its partners in government northern ireland's democratic unionist party over fears that it was centrally separate northern ireland for the rest of the u.k. and lead to a border down the middle of the irish sea so what's the alternative well in recent weeks there a plan of sorts has been taking shape the could potentially see the whole of the u.k. northern ireland and great britain remain part of an e.u. customs union breaks it for a short period of time possibly a number of years but how is to reason may go to sell that plan to hard line breaks

a tears within a parliament and within her own party who wants a clean break from brussels any plan that to reason may agree with brussels needs to be watertight she knows that there's talk of rebellion within her own ranks. chancellor angela merkel's varian allies have suffered their worst results since nine hundred fifty in regional elections a verdict that risks further divisions within the government in berlin the vote highlights deepening divisions in german politics over issues such as immigration dominate came as the latest from munich. for decades the christian social union has dominated varian politics but no longer now the vote has slumped dozens of seats have been lost and the overall majority has gone for the c.s. used current leader and sitting prime minister it was time to put on a brave face remember. we accept the results with humility and we will have

to learn from it we must analyze it clearly but one thing is clear despite the prognosis discussions and comments the c.s.u. is not only the strongest party but it's also received a clear mandate to govern. whereas for the greens this was a moment for celebration their vote more than doubled and did eight of bavarians biggest cities they came first cementing their position here as the leading party of the center left displacing the social democrats something the national polls had suggested for some time by and yet the parliamentary election results of a ready change but there is a tonight because it clearly shows that people want politics that encourages instead of spreading fear itself current problems instead of constant parties to it shows clearly that you can't win elections if you bet on the courage and passion and don't surf in a right wing way and yet one party that did precisely that was the alternative for germany in the twenty thirteen election they didn't exist this time around their

stance on tougher migration and border controls one of the more than ten percent of the vote in. this result is a message to merkel merkel must finally guard. i . yes we have the natural successes the c.s. years we stand for traditions af-am louise and for out varia for bavaria is a blessed land dear friends. in the immediate aftermath of this election attention will focus on who will form the next government here early indications are the c.s.u. will try to patch together a small majority with one of the minor policies but some more profound problems on not so easily solved sunday's result seems to many people here like a mini earthquake shaking the c.s.u. to its finalization is in its own hands the question now is what will the off the shocks be as a national level don't make

a al-jazeera immune. russian opposition leader alexina valley has thanked his supporters as he was freed after fifty days in detention the valley's said antigovernment protests won't be stopped by kremlin intimidation.