inward choosing cheaper domestic brands over u.s. luxury goods from apple to russia don't want mainly because the quality of phones from china is local brands have become better and better their market shares are rising. the homegrown huawei dominates the smartphone market in china its chief financial officer was arrested in canada last month accused of violating u.s. sanctions in her business dealings that stirred anger among chinese consumers giving them still more reason to support one way and boycott apple we still have a possible sixty day window for them to come to some sort of temporary agreement i think if anything the trade war is bringing tensions that we already saw between the u.s. and china economically to the four trade talks between the u.s. and china are set to resume in beijing this week. still to come on counting the cost a place in the sun one known europeans are snapping up property in greece. but

first tech giants in france now have to pay more tax the so-called gaffa tax named after google apple facebook and amazon is to ensure global digital firms pay their fair share the measure is expected to raise around five hundred seventeen million dollars for france and twenty nine t. in the french government have been pushing for an e.u. wide levy but failed to get the required support earlier we spoke to technologists and coda are all balkan who says that it won't financially hurt tech giant companies like facebook to pay more taxes if facebook was to pay the entirety of the tax that france wants to sue to levy. that would take about four days of earnings right now so we're not really talking about anything that's going to make a huge dent but this is a power play so really it again remains to be seen where the actual power lies here and i think it's in our interests as individuals and citizens that our democratically elected governments can keep these multinational tech companies and

check economists are warning that bad debts and low savings are threatening the survival of nigeria's commercial banks many people refused to put their money in accounts saying that banks can't be trusted idris reports. they yammered get him bungle farms and sells any instance of nigeria's neighbors at the peak of the season he makes about thirty thousand dollars a week despite this income he stops taking his money to the bank clerk at a bank he although i'm not satisfied with the services i receive a used to have an account that i was disappointed several times so i put my earnings back into the business and invest in real estate. and millions of other nigerians either not putting their money into savings account or have never even set foot in a bank. economist blame a number of factors including low income and poverty but even some of the rich and

looking elsewhere to take their money if you look at the investment of fortune it is that i will often especially our save nigeria and the relatively high associated was in this to me and such but interests it because less is center for them. in the country and are led to this to our side but importantly. the sabin's culture must be institutionalized by the government itself with many banks going out of business during the last decade economists say better supervision and enforcement is needed to attract the savings and investment the banking system. or any pay mentioned institutions to roll in to destress in terms of the high profile obvious total at risk are said been taken we have been combative in twelve long it indicates that the surveillance system provided by central mungo nigeria and as your lender for the insurance corporation is adequate or low all that it and what

it claimed i was on the part of that of the greater authorities banks are becoming lino with fewer branches and staff and accusations and mergers are also becoming the new. bank used to be here someone else is renting the building now after decades of doing business the bank shut down because it didn't have enough customers many people up want and don't have enough. money is a distrust of the banking system. small businessmen like they want more from the banks access not only to loans but better returns on their savings too if that's not provided the banks may find a number of customers contributing to savings accounts goodly father brazil's new president jaya boss an arrow was sworn in as the new year got underway he's already given powers to the agriculture ministry to manage the amazon rain forest john holdren reports from brasilia. so now he's president

not open begin making good on his election promises he'll face some big challenges . crime is number one more than sixty thousand brazilians were killed in two thousand and seventeen alone noddle solution giving more people access to guns and police more license to kill you're going to hear good you need to descend to save the cowboys to defend themselves will honor and respect those who sacrifice their lives for safety. but brazilian officers already killed thousands most of them young black it's being questioned if an even harder line will work. less controversial but just as challenging his boss a noddles saying to curb corruption he's brought in sergio morrow the man in charge of latin america's biggest bribery investigation this is justice minister but it may be tougher than he thinks nice fight against corruption it's much more easier

terms of how like the narrative that in terms of practice. the government has besides the fact felt a strong way off the president to fight against corruption been assessed to establish a lot of spoil the whole. gulf are not if i jam. and then there's the economy twelve million brazilians are unemployed also not all says that free market economics and small government will fix that you did you give the government one spend more income seen them into the future but if people really want to balance the books you have to make cuts to brazil's generous pension system it takes up more than half the federal budget that would be deeply unpopular how far president also not to get some responding to all of those challenges is going to be decided here in brasilia where his party has only about him but the seats in the houses of congress so he's going to have to negotiate with. those that backed

him and that includes ex generals evangelicals i grew business leaders and the financial sector if you want to get anything done and everyone will want to say these groups they are really willing to to fight each other so i'd say that the challenge is how to put these groups together and how to align expectations so that these groups become part of a government and not fragments. president bill so model run a successful campaign on the air or is it abuses of brazil's left of center governments now it's the time the man from the right to see if he can do better. joining us now from london richard siegel richard a senior emerging markets analyst with manulife asset management good to have you with the set once again richard so what are the challenges facing balsa nado as he takes office. focus is clearly going to be on the school consolidation from an

upper fronts economic liberalization but also a streamlining of the economy and the public sector workforce it's important to realize how enormous the challenges are though and therefore we'll be looking for this new government to be making step by step progress with only a few steps backwards rather than a big bang approach which would have the risk of failing but this is a man by his own admission who knows very little about the markets and how the financial world works has he got the wherewithal to do what brazil needs. thus far it's been quite encouraging to read one after another the appointments he's made to steer the economy first academics in the position of finance minister but also a long standing financial markets professional to run the central bank the risk

here is that where there are setbacks these individuals might resign or be forced out in their form would be back to the drawing board but thus far the president also caro as indicated that he will adopt a hands off approach towards letting the experts run the economy in the financial markets and so therefore there is reason to be encouraged but with many latin countries the initial placements and then welcomed but they haven't lasted long enough so once again we have to hold our breath and hope for the best eases he's going to stamp out brazil's and demick corruption it's bureaucracy. 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 they 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 that driving up previously depressed house prices normally europeans are among the bias if they spend enough they get a visa to stay on zeros joins the real police 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 a 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 governments 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 last seen and. read 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 had 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 and see when you do or you could drop us a line counting the cost of al-jazeera 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. and on the new book the arrival of refugees is debated in european parliament's. but the journey itself is little understood. to syrians document the route that has claimed so many lives such info sanctuary to people in

power on al-jazeera.

water an essential resource for all humankind across europe pressure to recognize water resist human rights and put its management back into public hands is increasing i think the european commission would be very very. strong on anybody it's the only. people who see everything as something to invest the profit of they want. to the last drop on al-jazeera. no breakthrough in the latest round of talks to end a partial us government shutdown.

this is al jazeera live from dakar also coming up. on. the. unions in hungary call for a national strike against a new label. ukraine's newly formed churches granted independence from russia provoking anger in moscow. find out why organizers are so keen for competitors to stay on course at this year's rally. the u.s. government shutdown is dragging on for its fifteenth day with another round of talks failing to break the deadlock white house officials met democratic congressional members but they still haven't found a way to reopen the government vice president mike pence says the meeting was productive and the two sides will meet again on sunday president donald trump is

refusing to sign a bill to fund the government until he gets more than five billion dollars to build his mexico border war diane estabrook has the latest from washington. vice president mike pence jared cushion or the president's son in law and close advisor and kiersten nielsen who is the secretary of homeland security met for about two hours on saturday afternoon with congressional aides talking about this government shutdown the vice president said that these talks on saturday were productive however president trump tweeted that the two sides really didn't make much headway now the vice president is going to be continuing these talks tomorrow while president trump is going to be meeting with some of his senior aides at camp david presidential retreat treat meanwhile this afternoon to house speaker nancy pelosi an ounce that house democrats are going to be meeting next week to pass individual

appropriations bills that would reopen some agencies including the department of treasury and the i.r.s. so the government could begin processing income tax returns and get income tax refunds back in the hands of americans now this shutdown is going into its fifteenth day if it goes another week that would be three weeks and it would make it the longest shutdown in u.s. history and while politicians continue to argue eight hundred thousand government employees are working without pay or not working at all that's creating a knock on effect for essential services across the country some transportation security agents who screen passengers at airports have been calling in sick because they don't want to work without pay the program providing food assistance to thirty eight million low income americans could face drastic cuts if the shutdown continues and starts the levels of national parks have been severely reduced the

government has decided to keep most parks open so far three people have died in accidents at the park since the shutdown began. political analyst eric cantor says the possible shutdown is going to have a devastating effect on what has and their communities if this shutdown goes another week this will be the first time within the shutdown that federal workers are not receiving paychecks and so think about that you have now that the holidays are over college students are going back to school and you have parents who are not working and so the question becomes do they pay mortgages or do they pay college tuition do they pay for groceries or do they pay utilities and so these are some of the bread and butter issues that people are faced with now as this shutdown continues to lome and they hear the president say that this shutdown he could take the shutdown for a year or four years that i'm sure has many workers hitting the panic button on

how they were actually survive going forward because when you look at those eight hundred thousand employees many of those eight hundred thousand employees are not within washington d.c. they're scattered throughout the country and so think about small businesses think about food trucks that may set up around government offices or building and though those are small businesses and now that those workers aren't coming into the office that's putting a crimp on small businesses opportunities to earn as well so we're not just talking about a hundred thousand employees going without paychecks we're talking about the residual small businesses and other entities that will not be getting paid as a result of these federal workers not working and so i mean it's a ripple effect and i just don't think either the president or even congress really understands what's at stake and i think we're going to really see the pressure ramp up next week when we see government workers start losing paychecks. a u.s.

national security advisor john bolton has warned syria's government the withdrawal of american troops is not a green light to use chemical weapons is arrived in israel and will meet prime minister benjamin netanyahu on sunday before travelling to ankara turkey has promised to take the lead in the fight against i saw in syria but reportedly wants american military support to continue even after the u.s. pullout mohamed atta has more from gaziantep on the turkey syria border. top on turkey's priority list is that is our moment of kurdish y.p. the fighters who had fought alongside u.s. troops in the fight against your solutions have told them many times before the most effective force against but to talk to them nothing more than a terrorist organization an extension of the kurdish workers but the p.k. k. and want them this amount on the disk and were taken out of territory and they were

near turkey's border with syria actually turkey doesn't want to hear quite b. deep controlling and they're part of syria and has been on a war footing in recent weeks saying they will carry out an attack on the tom the city of members with a view of removing the y. b. d. from the attack you'll want just to call on l. support from the united states one u.s. troop withdrawal process is complete but u.s. officials of ten told him on a clear timetable several times turkish officials would now expect don't bolt on when he visits uncle on tuesday to come up with a clear timetable for troop withdrawal. community has also called on the us not to withdraw troops from syria to free is even a foundation has warned that if american forces leave before isis defeated the armed group will make a comeback around three thousand were killed when i saw fighters swept across

northern iraq. mark and syria in twenty fourteen. and egyptian police officer has died while trying to defuse a bomb near a church in cairo police were called to the eastern suburbs of nasr city when a suspicious package was found on a rooftop to other offices and an onlooker were injured in the blast comes less than two days before egypt's christian minority celebrates the coptic christmas egyptian christians have been targeted in a string of attacks in recent years. union leaders in hungary are calling for a national strike and more protests as anger rises over labor reform a new law the amount of time employers can demand while delaying payment or a challenge reports. it's no secret what these hunger in protesters think of prime minister viktor orban. with christmas and the year after the way thousands of people around on the streets again still angry at new laws passed by parliament in

december. there was no coordination with the law was just pushed through in such a way that even the opposition could not have its voice heard we just saw on t.v. you know that this government with that two thirds majority can do what they want but we have to say stop now because people should not be treated like this in the working world. particularly hated is what's been called the slave labor code two hours of overtime to the average working day increased government control of the court system is also unpopular state media which gives little airtime to what position parties. we disagree with almost everything that has been going on since this government got into power and corruption to pseudo democracy and everything else mentioned at the protests the government doesn't represent the people. everybody has to have a voice here and that's not what's happening in hungary at the moment just

a part of the population is represented. when they began in mid december big government called the demonstrations the work of foreign forces and the liberal billionaire george soros. after winning a landslide election in april can say his party enjoys popular support. but these ongoing protests suggest opposition voices. and eyes than they have been in years not all hunger ariens light. where victor is taking his country will reach islands al-jazeera. french ministers have held an emergency meeting after the first yellow vests protests of the new year turned violent the. police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators in central paris the protests began in opposition to a rise in fuel tax but are now demanding are the reforms in serbia thousands of protesters have rallied for a fifth week there demanding media freedom and an end to attacks on journalists and

opposition rallies were triggered by an assault on an opposition politician by unknown attackers in november. the orthodox church of ukraine has officially split from its leadership in russia patriarch in istanbul a worldwide head of the church has signed a document granting independence the russian the russian judge has reportedly broken all links with this ukrainian parishes robertson reports. with a simple sweep of the pan ukraine's orthodox churches gain their independence or to suffer the a move likely to infuriate russian religious leaders and deepening feeds of a global split in the church days before the ceremony in istanbul the leader of the orthodox church worldwide denied he'd been given bribes to authorize the separation however he admitted to a group of children he had been given chocolates by ukrainian president petro

poroshenko. president poroshenko also has a chocolate factory even if the russian church is accusing me of being bribed with money to do this autocephaly in reality i didn't receive money because i got a lot of the sweets and chocolate from the factory apportioning go. according to an agreement made to centuries ago ukraine's orthodox churches have been under the jurisdiction of the churches of russia branch but pressure has been growing for ukraine's churches to sell. times since the country became independent from russia in one thousand nine hundred one. and that pressure has been getting stronger since russia annexed crimea in twenty fourteen when large parts of eastern ukraine were taken over by russian backed forces and for fighting continues. crean's leadership headed by president petro poroshenko who's been attending saturday's ceremony accuses the russian controlled side of the church of spreading pro moscow propaganda.