what's it going to take to get foreign direct investments what is it going to take to get those of us looking into brazil from the outside to put our money into the country a lot has actually been done in the past several years the car wash scandal help to root out a lot of the larger scale corruption so i would say that the more important challenges as we look into two thousand and nineteen into two thousand and twenty are to focus on the bureaucracy rather than the corruption because of the scandals of the past couple of years those politicians who might be inclined to go back to the old ways will be afraid afraid of being taped or be afraid of being finding themselves on the front pages for the wrong reasons so that's less of a worry however pre-sales public sector bureaucracy is bloated across the board left to right up and down i think there what we need is an effort to reduce the

size of the public sector workforce it's going to let it take a long time but it has been delayed for many years and i have to start some richard really good still too many thanks indeed for being with us and counting the cost thank you and finally this week a record thirty three million visits is a heading to greece every year and then driving up previously depressed house prices normally europeans are among the bias if they spend enough they get a visa to stay on zeros jones the ripple us reports from athens. has just sold to this one bedroom apartment to a chinese investor it has a panoramic view of athens but until last year the owners would have been lucky to get half the price it fetched two hundred eighty thousand dollars that's the minimum investment required for a greek golden visa which allows non europeans to live in europe it's the cheapest such visa in the european union and it's brought a flood of new money into

a depressed real estate market. the main priority for people who buy these properties it's secure the golden visa and freedom to travel in europe they see it as a cheap investment in a property they intend to rent out half of all golden visas in greece go to chinese nationals chinese companies have set up shop here to renovate and manage their properties foreign money is a bonanza for estate agents like who've seen their business jump by more than fifty percent in the year and tourism is part of that bonanza short term rentals are booming in central athens and boutique hotels are springing up during the past decade house construction and house sales have fallen by ninety percent that has wiped three billion dollars off the tax revenues that were raised when property changes hands so government introduced the highest taxes in the european union on property ownership anyone with real estate must pay to keep it and failure to do so

means the government may seize it and their bank accounts. greeks are being forced to sell the property they spent generations building to meet tax obligations the head of the hellenic property federation which represents owners met greece's creditors when the property tax was introduced. it is said that this was a tax greeks must learn to pay because their real estate holdings a large compared to those of other europeans i don't think credit is understood that this tax goes against core values the greeks worked hard to build their property they often have to go overseas nobody handed them this property. the selling spree is also encouraged by banks which are foreclosing on twelve and a half billion dollars worth of property that backs non-performing loans and they've severely cut credit for new mortgages so even though average property

prices have fallen by forty percent in the past decade few greeks are in any position to take advantage of opportunities and that is our show for this week if you'd like to comment on anything that you've seen please do get in touch with us you can tweet me i'm at a finnigan on twitter please use the hash tag a j c t c when you do or you could drop us a line counting the cost of al-jazeera the that is our e-mail address as always there's more for you online at al-jazeera dot com slash c.t.c. that takes you straight to our page and they will find individual reports links even entire episodes for you to catch up on but that's it for this edition of counting the cost i'm adrian finnegan from the whole team here in doha thanks for being with us the news on al-jazeera is next. bigger and potentially more dangerous that's the best way to describe what's happening with a smoking alternative known as favorite i enjoy the taste of it and the harmful effects of what smoking does between two thousand and thirteen in two thousand and

fourteen alone we start tripling in use among us high school students and head to head comparison ysaye versus conventional cigarette which one do you think has helped my opinion i think they're both dangerous take no zero. six. from some roots of this thing is a problem and if that. is the name of the rich are important. regular music is really kind of trip for a very young. but i feel that. the talks of are just the quality. of our great music as the rest of us to be rather than to be drugged especially for a good thing this is kind of all in all the right wing assault on all. the oscar shins and freedom of expression on people you know all being students teachers

activists for their cause right so it's nice all of them but it's going to do this on the. blog on the streets the protest has reached our doorstep so. attempts to contradict something that was. done on line i want to start here on my laptop with a tweet or if you join us on saturday there was a rush of adrenaline will be felt this is the moment that to me i've been waiting for this is a dialogue the government has cool face i need to protest i will stop to police to use force to disperse the crowds everyone has a voice. lots of different reasons what's the difference types of bricks join the global conversation on how to zero.

al-jazeera. this is the news hour live from doha coming up in the next sixty minutes. whole millions of americans hundreds of thousands of workers. another meeting between leading democrats and president government shutdown fails to reach a resolution. calls for an independent investigation into the death of. arabia's trial is not sufficient. thailand by its first tropical storm and three decades causing flooding and fear of landslides. and. latin american countries and canada won't recognize his presidency when he's sworn in for a second term. and

looks like there's no end in sight for the partial u.s. government shutdown which is now into its third week. says it could last for years but he hopes it doesn't right now there are hundreds of thousands of government employees either working without pay or not working at all has been holding emergency talks with congressional leaders at the white house to try to end the stalemate the democrats have accused of holding the american people hostage the sticking point is demands for five billion dollars to fund a wall along the border with mexico the democrats won't give him that money so the president says he may use emergency powers to build it and reports. the two sides emerged from both sides of the white house with very different impressions of how their meeting went and we had a very. a productive meeting a lengthy and sometimes contentious conversation with the president. with democrats now in charge of one chamber of congress they came to the white

house to try and find a compromise to reopen the government the president says he won't sign a bill that doesn't spend five billion dollars on a wall the democrats say they simply will not spend a penny to build it they only seem to agree on one thing in fact he said he'd keep the government closed for a very long period of time months or even years absolutely i said that i don't think it will but i am prepared and i think i can speak for republicans in the house and republicans in the senate they feel very strongly about having a safe country but that is the key question can he keep senate republicans on his side if enough vote to fund the government it could override any potential veto reopening the government without a wall without that it could go on it for much longer both sides refusing to budge the president threatened to declare a national emergency to build his wall on his own but it seems unlikely he actually has the power to do that under the constitution political scientist eric campbell

doesn't think the new house speaker nancy pelosi will cave i think the question becomes next week when they are when they are government employees who are not getting paychecks i think that's when we really get a sense of how dug in and people are on both sides of an open question about who will win the political fight hundreds of thousands of government workers and contractors are not being paid and for many not paying their bills for them it is a question of how much more they'll have to lose before this political fight is over particle hane al-jazeera washington live down to any gallagher in washington d.c. and there doesn't seem to be much to go she ation going on. i mean very little if anything neither side in this argument is blinking at all again passes continuing we're in two weeks free of this government shutdown eight hundred thousand federal workers going without pay but of course don't want frames this all

as a national issue a national security issue he talked today about invoking powers to to build the wall on his own something that's far more complicated than he presented but he is not budging on this issue he wants five point six billion dollars to build a wall along the border them across it's who have just taken over control of the house of representatives saying no it's not going to happen they've already offered over a billion dollars to enhance security on the border but that's not what donald trump wants remember this was his signature promise when he was campaigning to become president this is a fight that is base likes it's popular among those people but we're stretching into week three now a partial government shutdown and it really depends on who the american public begin to blame for the situation on who will ultimately win it because once again both sides will meet this weekend to try and hammer out some kind of deal but at the moment there's no leeway there's no wiggle room on either side the president is

putting his foot down saying i get this money or nothing else is going to happen and democrats are saying no you are not getting this money there is a new political reality in washington d.c. and that is them across now control the house of representatives and donald trump may not realize what that actually means but it means that for now this partial government shutdown could go on for weeks months or as the president said even years is there any indication who right now the american people seem to be siding with in this. i mean not really as i said i think among trump's base this is the promise that he ran on and you heard the people when he was running for president shouting build that wall it's extremely popular among his base but among democratic supporters and even some republican senators are now already saying listen let's reopen the government people like susan collins of maine are saying let's get back to business and it may very well depend of the last few weeks over the next few weeks if republican senators start to break away

supporting the president on this there is some talk that perhaps they'll be some leeway with the with back of people children of immigrants who were brought to this country in voluntarily if if the democrats can get some sort of deal not there may be some wriggle room but us things stand at the moment you've got both sides being very clear on how they feel about funding the wall and neither side of the moment budging an inch all right andy gallagher live in washington d.c. andy thank you are brown joins us from washington d.c. she's director of the graduates or were political management at george washington university thank you so much for your time so congress has given. congress has given donald trump money for border security generally speaking just not specifically wall and he has really not even spent all of the money that is available to him what is this really about. well i think what it is

about is precisely what your correspondents have talked about which is a campaign promise this president did run on building a wall across the southern border the reality is during the campaign he said mexico would pay for this wall mexico said they would not pay for the wall in two thousand and seventeen he came back and essentially said well we need to advance mexico the money to pay for this wall and then in twenty eighteen he is essentially said that his new renegotiation of nafta the north american free trade agreement which now is just a u.s. canada mexico agreement is purportedly paying for this wall but none of that is in fact true and most democrats are saying look we do have one point three billion in border security funds in the package that the house passed last night and it is

the same package that the senate passed three weeks ago and the president is still not accepting it hasn't really faced any real resistance until now you know the democrats control the house now it seems that is the negotiating skills will truly be put to the test do you see that there could be any cracks in the republican side because they do watch there are members of the republican party that actually do want to move forward. absolutely in fact i think one of the things that was telling was that i believe it was seven house republicans voted with the democratic party in those appropriations bills that were passed last night it's also true that we've seen senators who are up for election in two thousand and twenty and that are running in competitive states like colorado senator cory gardner and susan collins of maine even joni ernst of iowa it would

not be surprising to see some of them breaking away as some of them have already suggested that they should just go ahead move forward with the deal and start this entire legislative year on a new foot ok laura brown with george washington university thank you very much. wall street stocks are higher on friday to finish a volatile week on a positive note that's after trying to signal progress in the trade war between the u.s. and china the tension to drag on for nearly a year slowing business and speaking stock markets worldwide are but also looks at how u.s. finances are shaping up at the start of the new year. stock markets swinging wildly. a bruising global trade war and slowing growth worldwide so what's in store for twenty nineteen veteran forecaster locke's mana chewton studies

leading economic indicators he says slow downs are part of capitalism upswings and downswings accelerations and the celebrations are inevitable that's part and parcel of a market oriented economy. but that cyclical slowdown is worsened by policy decisions particularly the trumpet ministrations tariffs on foreign steel aluminum and in a ray of goods made in china also rattled investors with unprecedented criticism of the federal reserve the nominally independent u.s. central bank it's really been a one two punch cycle slow down first then the trade sanctions trade war rhetoric whatever you want to call it and the question right now is are we ready or what is the next punch going to be in are we are we ready for it. in december general motors said it would close five plants and lay off thousands of

workers in part due to soaring steel costs companies large and small are scaling back plans for twenty nineteen. los angeles business when tommy yep sells toys made in china had the. initial thought to start store two next year but that may be back to the drawing board germany sweden italy switzerland. russia and other developed countries have all had negative growth for at least one quarter and china is clearly in a significant slowdown. as for the us the us is not imminent risk of a recession but we're continuing to slow in the longer we slow the sharper the slowdown the closer we get to recession risk. consumer spending is still strong us shoppers want more than eight hundred fifty billion dollars worth of goods in the

twenty eighteen holiday season it's always possible to remain optimistic and hope that policymakers make wise decisions and that the global economy doesn't tip into recession on the other hand the optimist who jumped off the higher state building you know what he said on the way down so far so good. so buckle up twenty nine team could be one. robert oulds washington. and then more ahead in the news hour including a look at the end intended consequences of a peace deal between the government and rebels in colombia a massive data breach and germany sees politicians and data published online was it a leak or was it a hack and the world number one sufferer says first if you did this new season and he has a story just. say

mike pompei of heads to the middle east next week and best case into the murder of journalist expected to be on the agenda when he meets saudi leaders he'll also be seeking help from allies to make more of an effort to maintain security in the region a day visit will include egypt united arab emirates and qatar jordan has more from washington. eight countries eight days not much time for sleep a lot has been packed into the secretary's agenda here not only is he going to be putting pressure on riyadh to elevate its credibility about the story that it has been telling about the murder of the journalist jamal khashoggi it's also going to be putting pressure on all eight countries that he is visiting to do more to try to withstand the influence of iran in their internal affairs the u.s. considers iran perhaps one of its top two or three foreign policy objectives and it

feels that if by dealing this face to face being that they might be able to get a little further along in their ham pain to isolate iran on the global stage the secretary is also going to be holding a couple of strategic dialogues with officials in doha and officials in kuwait sitting and he is going to be looking at a number of other key issues that really have been on the us his foreign policy agenda for the past year especially the ongoing war in syria the ongoing war in afghanistan the ongoing war in yemen a lot to pack and a lot to discuss but whether their way to come up with anything concrete at the end of this eight day trip is really what remains to be seen. landis is the director of a center for middle east studies at the diversity of oklahoma it says pompei o. will want to reassure allies after president trump's announcement to withdraw u.s.

troops from syria. this is really to reassure i think our allies that our foreign policy is not in shambles or not completely confused because after all president trump. announced that he was going to withdraw from syria very precipitously and this has shaken a lot of people particularly in the gulf the saudis and others who were hoping that the united states would remain there for the long haul to roll back iran shaken israel and of course turkey and the u.s. have a lot to talk about because turkey is now moving closer to the u.s. because it is changing policy the u.s. is going to try to put a good face on this and president trumps desire to withdraw from syria say that it it changes of very small part of our policy but not the larger part which is to to constrain iran and that is still the heart of president trumps middle east

policy. announcement up on pay as trip came a saudi arabia held its first hearing on the marc shows in case it's taken the death penalty for five of the eleven suspects but the trial has already been criticized by the un's human rights office mike hanna has more from the united nations in new york. well the u.n. making very clear that it wants an independent international investigation into the murder of jamal khashoggi a spokesperson for the high commissioner for human rights insisting that it's impossible to adjudicate on the impartiality of the process underway in riyadh the trial there of the eleven suspects in the murder beginning this week the spokes person had this to say we are not present in saudi arabia to be able to assess these trials and we can't give an assessment of the trials ourselves we as you know have been pressing for justice in the case for months now. and we've been calling

for an investigation independent investigation with international involvement and this has not happened yet now while we are aware that a trial has taken place in saudi arabia this is not sufficient first of all and second of all we are against the imposition of the death penalty in all circumstances a number of human rights organizations have also cost outside of the legality or impartiality of that process in riyadh also calling for some kind of international independent investigation into the murder but the situation is that the u.n. is quite capable of michelle such an investigation by itself all it requires is one of the legislative bodies of the united nations the security council of the general assembly to give a mandate to the secretary general to start such an investigation however it would appear that un members are looking for some kind of political cover they want one

of the interested parties in the same. to ation to approach the security council of the general assembly and make such a request the interested parties turkey and saudi arabia it's unlikely it would appear that saudi arabia would make the request turkey has insisted that it does one some kind of independent international investigation headed by the united nations but as yet it has not made an official request to any of the united nations bodies tropical storm public has been lashing southern thailand and fisherman has died another is missing after their boat capsized the storm has weakened since making landfall but it's cause disruption to flights and various services on the popular tourist island of cos i'm away from there for its lawyer reports. tropical storm public unleashes its fury on southern thailand meteorologists say the timing is unusual as it's well outside of the monsoon season public made

landfall in the province of no consequence on friday hours earlier than expected the government issued a maximum alert warning for the area officials had given orders days ago to start releasing water from some reservoirs in the southern provinces to lower the levels and reduce the potential for flash floods thousands of people living in low lying coastal villages have been moved to higher ground. schools are shut with some buildings turned into emergency shelters the oil and gas industry has also been affected more than two thousand workers have been evacuated from offshore rigs on coast some an island north of new concept boats ferries and flights have been suspended yesterday we went back. for more. cause me to come back from. today.

stop. yesterday afternoon. power supplies have been disrupted in some areas the eye of the storm was initially forecast to pass through coast. it's changed but we're still feeling the effects of tropical storm it hasn't stopped raining and the waves are much stronger than usual and people have been told to stay out of the water. the storm is losing strength as it crosses southern thailand and heads into the ondemand sea but the amount of rain it dumps in the region still means a better threat of severe flooding florence louis al-jazeera. our ministers from latin america and canada say their governments won't recognize nicolas maduro as venezuela's president when he's sworn in for a second term next week the limit group of states meeting improves capital to discuss how to step up pressure on the door oh say elections in may we're not credible and they're calling or power to be transferred to the national assembly. can be held. by the country because of

a political and economic crisis. more from. the foreign ministers of the fourteen countries members of the group decided not to recognize. next president to take over office again on january tenth they said didn't comply with international standards not transparent it didn't have any opponents and it didn't have any international observers group decided today. officials from the government will not be allowed to enter any of the member countries it was expected in the last few weeks that at least. would break diplomatic relations with. and minister said that they are increasingly worried about the humanitarian and political situation in. foreign

minister said the country's urged president. not to take off again on january the tenth in the southwest of colombia community leaders and human rights activists are being killed at a rate of one every three days targeted by armed groups fighting for control of land to cultivate drugs but the rate of killings as an increased sense of peace deal was signed with years ago as reports of. hundreds of people attend the funeral of a. community leader. there are of human rights shot dead in the kalka region of colombia his brother says it's only seen we're speaking out he made a strong statement against armed actors at a community meeting and sentenced himself to death as they say they were there that day but who knows which ones they were they could be any of seven different criminal groups dissident rebels paramilitaries and other armed gangs fighting to

control this land for the lucrative cultivation of coca crops the plane to use to make o'kane. any legal gold mining. at the two thousand and sixteen peace deal with fart rebels ended the decades long war against the government but left the power vacuum that the state as failed to feel. indigenous leader and senator. has received death threats for denouncing the criminal groups activities. he was given an armored car but no body guards. we don't know who will be next it could be me a family member or a companion we are living in constant fear of what can happen in any given day the norden cow can degenerate association has compiled a list of the death threats received by its members but says the government needs to recognize the systematic pattern of the attacks. there's a killing every day indigenous social leaders human rights defenders we are

denouncing the government's lack of attention. to. the overall number of killings yes fallen since the signing of the peace deal but the same is not true when it comes to community leaders and human rights defenders four hundred have been killed since two thousand and sixteen one hundred sixty four in two thousand and eighteen alone. under pressure the government invited the special reportorial from the united nations on a fact finding mission he met with hundreds of community leaders and victims of attacks i mean you can only. somehow it's a systematic against the founders want to blame this government but. really. the government of president says many of the problems date back to the previous administration but unless more is done people will continue to pay the ultimate price for speaking out.

counting centers in the democratic republic of congo's capital consorts i have started compiling the results of last sunday's elections athlete bishops who feel the largest group of election observers say there is a clear winner and demanded that accurate results are declared and while the united nations human rights office one of the government's decision to block the enter net trigger violence. intimidation and harassment against journalists opposition candidates and human rights defenders continues to take place. and this being a very sensitive as i said very tense period we are concerned that these efforts to silence dissent could backfire considerably when the results are announced and we are watching carefully and we are calling on all sides to refrain from the use of violence still ahead on al-jazeera the pharmacy in the u.s.

that are leaving some communities in the cold. war here from one of the teams getting ready to make its debut in asian football's biggest international tournaments. hello again and welcome back well here across the united states we are looking at a weather system down here towards the southeast that is making its way up the east coast and got a cousin problem here for parts of new york as we get to the beginning of the weekend heavy rain is going to be a problem there also probably affecting parts of boston so if you have international travel into any of these cities you could expect some delays there well the west coast rain all the way down from british columbia basically down towards san francisco we're going to be seeing some clouds down towards l.a. fourteen degrees there but as we go towards sunday a lot of that rain makes its way towards the east but it's going to turn to snow

expression in the higher elevations but it's going to be a rainy day with a term for there of fifteen degrees here across much of the caribbean we're going to see a frontal boundary that came in from the united states that system is going to continue to make its way down here towards the southeast and bring rain or anywhere from cuba down over towards parts of jamaica over here towards the bahamas will see rain as well as we go towards sunday the rain continues for much of that area down towards sumter domingo though it is going to be a nice day for you at about twenty eight degrees down here towards panama a lot of rain in the forecast over the next few days with the temperature there of thirty to managua a partly cloudy day at thirty three and up here towards guatemala about twenty four degrees for you.

hard. water and essential resource for all humankind across you.