tech giant is the world's largest smartphone maker it's predicting a drop in fourth quarter profits because of weak a demand for its chips and the competitive phone markets this rob reynolds gauge the mood at the consumer electronics show which kicked off this week in las vegas. four thousand companies from dozens of countries rolled out new products at the consumer electronics show l.g.'s new flexible t.v. screen made a big splash. l.g. has an only ad t.v. sixty five inches that rolls down and disappears from view into a box that is the first rolled on flexible screen that we've seen produced from a major television manufacturer the price tag around three thousand dollars this year there's an air of anxiety in these corridors tech stocks have been tumbling on wall street apple made a surprise announcement it would miss sales targets blaming weak demand in china chinese telecommunications giant weiwei is here even though its chief financial

officer is under house arrest in canada fighting american efforts to put her on trial for fraud you know major chinese tech executives are attending c.e.o.'s giant tech companies are displaying smart home devices face recognition systems and more big picture products and then there are guys like golly rows of who got tired of folding all this kid's laundry that we have piles of laundry always waiting to be folded and who doesn't rows of the appliance called fold of eights will go on the market later this year price that about a thousand dollars on the corky side c e s twenty nine hundred features wearables for pets smart phone controlled doggie doors and a baffling proliferation of internet connected intelligent toilets there are plenty of items here that are fascinating and some will prove to be big hits with consumers others frankly nobody really needs but there's no

truly revolutionary technology on display here at c s in fact many analysts would argue that the last really big innovation was the smartphone introduced by apple nearly a dozen years ago the next big wave might be household devices with advanced artificial intelligence or a this is one example. elec you build as a digital companion for elderly people living alone i try to be. present. companies are charging ahead with that will become deeply embedded in people's lives all with little regulation or public debate the impact of this technological evolution will change human relationships and society in the coming decades for better or for worse. these days the buzz in the motoring sector is all about self driving electric cars meanwhile traditional car makers are under pressure to stay

profitable if they don't thousands of jobs around the world could be at stake this week ford said that its shifting and restructuring its entire operation in europe the revamp is likely to result in thousands of job losses the car manufacturer employs approximately fifty three thousand people in europe across fifteen plants britain's biggest carmaker. is also set to announce cuts. reports. it is the country's biggest carmaker employing more than forty thousand workers in the u.k. but jack you are landrieu is in trouble and struggling to turn a profit reviving the luxury brands fortunes means cutting jobs for half thousand are expected to go most are in management and marketing some production jobs might also go the company's been hit by a perfect storm of problems sales in china one of his biggest markets have slumped

trade tensions with the u.s. have led to a fall in consumers making big purchases. the company's also been affected by calling global demand for diesel cars ninety percent of g q a landrover is production. and a home there are a big worry is over the u.k.'s competitiveness post breaks it the company says a batiks it deal could cost it one and a half billion dollars a year the government's promising to help those who have lost their jobs it is a brilliant skilled workforce it's a real asset to this country and whatever the terms of the announcement we will do everything that we can to make sure that they can find jobs that make use of their they really valuable skills this isn't the first blow to job to a land rovers workforce the company owned by india's tata motors already cut

a thousand temporary contract workers at its plant near birmingham it also recently announced it would move all production of the land rover discovery to a new plant in each member slovakia employing three thousand people jack your land rover has been forced to streamline it is the pay for reality of uncertain times costing thousands of people their livelihoods staying with transportation illegal drone use hitting air departures briggs it worries about the global economy volatile fuel prices and an ongoing blockade here in the middle east challenge is already mounting up for the aviation industry and twenty nineteen the international air transport association nevertheless predicts that more of us will want to travel by air in the year ahead. well joining us now from london is peter morris peter is a chief economist at flight ascend consultancy peter good to have you with us on counting the cost before we talk about the outlook for the aviation sector in

twenty nineteen let's let's deal with the question that everybody wants answered the cost of flights are they going to go up or down in twenty nineteen one of the key drivers behind that is what fuel prices are going to do and at the moment it looks like fuel prices are going to be lower and twenty nine thousand and twenty eighteen so other things being equal you'd expect some reduction in price what impact is briggs it's if it whatever form breaks it eventually takes likely to have on the aviation sector within europe well i think i go back to what you're a star said to a parliamentary inquiry in twenty sixteen when they were posed the question what are the positive elements that occur from bracks it for transportation to or from the u.k. and they said bluntly there are none and i would reiterate that from an aviation point of view in fact it's a complete disaster from the point of view of the regulatory front where the u.k. has been involved in the european common aviation area and now we would have to

take rules from that rather than be part of the room making process we've got all the issues of that a decline in demand following the devaluation of the pound and ultimately air transport follows where the g.d.p. growth is and all the four car show that breaks it is going to have a significant impact on the u.k. g.d.p. which will mean less demand in and out our let's let's take a look at a in the stablished market the us on the outlook for for aviation in twenty nineteen there and a fast growing market china world that two ends of the spectrum really in terms of the kind of development phase so you're seeing in china those something like ten to fifteen percent growth in traffic has occurred for the last decade. also and inevitably that has meant that the various pressures of come on as regards infrastructure as regards the stability of the individual airlines but then that's

consolidated to some degree and you've carried on seeing that desire to travel which particularly follows the g.d.p. at the other end the spectrum will lead shoes that happened in the us regarding security and the problems of now traveling short distances it stops of come easier to drive all videophone or whatever it is and that is dampened the gearing between g.d.p. growth and the actual growth in traffic and it's a mature market in other words and at the other end the spectrum you've got a dynamic growth market in china so you're almost seeing the whole spectrum net to some degree the question is what the next iteration in north america is because north american ascend has given aviation to the world in terms of. a deregulated business models all be getting there first in the sheer size of that market so you

are starting to see a tailoring offer growth of around four to five percent rather than the six to eight percent you're seeing generally around the world and none the less sure seeing half the profitability of the entire aviation business is coming out of north america with less than twenty percent of the traffic so it sort of brings home that that consolidating business model has been good for shareholders and i think we have to debate just how good it's been for consumers at the same time here in the middle east of course the blockade on castle continues that's not just cats or always but but all of the that the middle east carries what's the outlook and in twenty nineteen for middle east carriers were there needs to be a resolution of the. political problems and obviously that isn't something the aviation business is going to do if it turns self but it's damage the the business

of all the major players in the middle east and it's damaged their economies as well so to my mind looking from the outside there has to be some kind of resolution in order to facilitate the kind of levels of growth in middle east carriers saw before that did actually change the shape of aviation for the better it provided more customer choice for more destinations more origins around the world and at the moment you've got the problem that within a craft orders going through and the aircraft being delivered the question is where those carriers are going to put those a craft on the routes and it's becoming challenging while you have these political issues peter great to talk to you on cutting the cost many thanks dave for being with us thank you. finally this week greece is asking its citizens to contribute some of their own money so that it can buy new warships but it may have to look abroad for funding. reports from athens.

greece is thirteen frigates form the backbone of its navy but they are now three decades old refitting them would cost more than half the price of a new fleet and without the capabilities so the heloc navy is looking for a brand new fleet and it's taking donations gallagher's a limitless day as i call on great ship owners and greek citizens to contribute something from their surplus in a special account set up to acquire a new fleet of frigates and a new flagship greek defense spending has fallen by forty percent to six billion dollars during a decade of recession and even though it's still one of the biggest spenders in nato greece says it cannot afford new equipment and its traditional rival turkey now spends three times as much the problem is greeks already have the highest taxes in europe in an attempt to pay off the national debt and half the population still owes the government money. no i won't contribute the country has much bigger

priorities than buying weapons we need better salaries better pensions better health care and education all the things that make a country civilized and where greece has fallen behind the european union is a real union it will help with our defense complicating matters to former defense ministers are now in jail for embezzlement one of them for the contracts that upgraded the frigate fleet with greeks overtaxed at home the defense ministry is looking to greeks living abroad and the merchant shipping community these communities produced a rescue plan once before it was a donation of seven million gold francs that enabled greece to make a down payment of almost a third of the value of this crew in one thousand the george r ver of ball the name of its benefactor and helped greece defeat the ottoman empire. second time and double its territory in the balkan wars now as then the navy wants to extend its range this time to cover its exclusive economic zone or easy as well as that of

cyprus where hydrocarbons have recently been discovered well supposedly one of the reasons of the greek fleet wants to update in the last revised upwards is the fact that it's now being called upon to safeguard the easy between. greece and cyprus which is in the east med very far from where it's used to prowling sensually becoming for what they call green water navy to a blue water navy greece has long relied on the generosity of individuals and greek ship owners are constantly helping the armed forces but fleet renewal costs many billions of dollars to cover it greece will need friends as well as family. and that's it for this week if you'd like to get in touch with us about anything that you've seen you can contact me directly i've got a finnigan on twitter please use the hash tag a j c t c when you do or you could drop us a live counting the cost of al-jazeera dot that is our e-mail address as always

there's plenty more for you on line at al-jazeera dot com slash c.t.c. that takes you straight to our page and there you'll find individual port's links even entire episodes for you to catch up on but that's it for this edition of counting the cost i'm adrian fed again for the whole team here at doha thanks for being with us the news of al-jazeera is next. russian filmmaker andre neck rosol travels across his homeland to discover what life is like under putin the russian economy is in crisis sanctions unstable oil prices fluctuating cards off of the country struggles to make ends meet in soviet times doctors were in charge now economists calculate everything we don't want to think what will happen when the bank takes away our flags. in search of putin's russia on al-jazeera. and monday put it on.

us and british companies have announced the biggest discovery of natural gas in west africa but what to do with these untapped natural resources is already a source of heated debate nothing much has changed they still spend most of their days looking forward to for the dry river beds like this one five years on the syrians still feel battered or even those who managed to escape their country have been truly unable to escape the war. sure true names at home. and inspiration. personal stories of people who live keeping the spirit of freedom alive. by courageously defending their rights to be heard. as discipline but to be good at al-jazeera selects. discover

a wealth of award winning programming from around the globe. fearless journalist the cover most will still have less cultural the balance of power is no favor of the. debates and discussions you get why there's a lot of disillusionment with the un across the globe powerful documentary. see the world from a different perspective. only on al-jazeera. this is al-jazeera. hello and welcome to the sound is here a news hour live from doha i'm martin that is coming up in the next sixty minutes the runner up in the democratic republic of congo's presidential election will

challenge the results in court. police in sudan fired tear gas to disperse protesters and thousands take to the streets calling for the president to step down . and president trump rules out declaring a national emergency to build his border wall but is shut down standoff with democrats continues. that's why i would like to start stop playing. andy murray wants one last wimbledon but reveals he's in so much pain that his tennis career could end before that. but we start in the democratic republic of congo where the runner up in the presidential election has vowed to challenge the result in court citing the catholic church election observers martin says he won with

a landslide sixty one percent of the vote he claims the declared winner the rival of positionally leader felix she is a kennedy got just eighteen percent of the catholic church and the french government to both disputing the results saying it doesn't match what was seen on the ground. well the united nations actually general antonio ted ash he has called for calm in the d.l.c. tensions there are building after an already controversial election is now calls countries around the world to question the result al-jazeera is diplomatic editor james berets explains why the security council finds itself in the most difficult position its members have long been keen to see the back of the could be led government but now it's been defeated they face an electoral dispute between rival opposition candidates they will for now rally around the message of the head of the un peacekeeping force in congo a call to avoid further conflict i deplore all such acts of violence and appeal

to the congolese people and security forces alike to exist size and restraint in this critical period the security council tried to discover if the provisional election result was an accurate reflection of the will of the people the head of the electoral commission briefing the council from can chart admitted the election was not perfect and had been conducted in an atmosphere of mistrust but he stood by the result he's announced. the african union and the regional body the south african development community which had observer teams on the ground both broadly back that assessment but then came the testimony of archbishop who temby his catholic church organization senko have fielded by far the largest number of observers nearly forty thousand correspondent bob orr results is published did not match the data collected by our own observation mission we have

a recommendation to publish it quickly as possible all the records and minutes from the counting and polling stations to allow candidates to compare but the head of the electoral commission said he would only hand over that data to the constitutional court for now the security council is focusing on the stability of the democratic republic of the congo but as the electoral dispute continues maintaining calm and avoiding violence will become harder and harder james bows out his era at the united nations but we've been speaking to pierre angle that here's a nonresident senior fellow at the atlantic council's africa center he says the catholic church is version of the count appears to be the most accurate. somebody is not telling the truth so the catholic church had observers in many many voting stations samples about ten percent of the. thirteen million votes that they

observed in a random with a and i think that there are methods there with the show then they would explain them seem very rigorous i'm not sure the catholic church in an entirely neutral actor but they certainly are reliable trustworthy one. the electoral commission on the other hand has so far been very opaque about its methods and it's unclear whether the tallies that they've come up with at the level of the voting stations much the results that have been aggregated in larger centers of the electoral commission so you get a fairly significant discrepancy there i don't know what the numbers of the catholic church are at this point they have not released the actual numbers but they've made it clear that by their account it's martin for you to who would be in the lead and not feeding. the actual commission of congo is as nut does not have a reputation for a high degree of integrity and over time the diff certainly acted in ways including

its president. in ways that suggest that they are doing the bidding of the regime to a large extent and so yes i would i would consider if anything the catholic church to be more trustworthy than the electoral commission. security forces in sudan have pursued and attacked injured protesters inside a hospital in the country's second largest city. the country has seen three weeks of demonstrations they started over the rising price of bread and quickly transformed into demands for longtime president omar al bashir to step down even more when reports from the capital. friday's prayers in sudan ended with calls for more protests demanding the resignation of president obama to be here and the calls were heated in several cities security forces again fired tear gas at some protestors even hospitals have been in the firing line in what amnesty international is describing as an outrageous violation of international law

security forces time to hospital on wednesday they were looking for protesters injured during anti-government demonstrations in the man sudan second largest city bullets and tear gas were fired at patients and doctors they've walked out on strike in protest the sudanese government says it's investigating what happened. to forces actually follow the protesters inside the hospital. and they used as a live a mission. horrible situation and i think even in conflict situation that i can hold with all that's considered a war crime when's this protest in and demand were reported to be the largest in three weeks of demonstrations against the twenty nine year rule of president ahmedabad sheer police and security forces have responded with force at least three people were killed on wednesday rights groups say the number killed since protests began is at least forty the government says the total is twenty two presidents are going to be seems to find as his party threatens to use force against those

protesting his rule overseas work give us a week let's see who would dare challenge just one week we don't want people without permits protesting those protesting and especially those who are who will cut off their heads. the protesters accuse president bashir of mismanaging pecan of me ignoring corruption and causing the world's second highest inflation rate because of anti-government protests is regarded as the biggest challenge to president bashir since he came to power in one thousand eighty nine some opposition groups have lend their support to those them bending his top down calls for his resignation continue with more protests planned into the week all triggered by the country's economic crisis queues for bread are common the price of a loaf tripled recently the ruling party says it wants bashir who remains wanted by the international criminal court for work crimes to be reelected next year protesters seem determined to prevent that with the strongest challenge to his leadership people morgan al-jazeera hot zone in caracas opponents of nicolas maduro

who protested as he begins his second term as venezuela's president now position rally was held outside the headquarters of the organization of american states the head of the opposition run congress his challenge maduro's right to the presidency saying he is ready to assume power in self and call for new elections to raise a boat has more from the venezuelan capital. i'm here at this coming straight that's been organized by the opposition controlled national assembly this is expected to be a first step towards what's going to be the beginning of what they say are going to be protests against the president because what today are basically saying is that they won't recognize this presidency and they're going to take a national support to hold her in the special there's no divisions within the opposition right now we're hearing about some members of the opposition wants to name the president of the national assembly one why those as the new president of

the republic and there are others who say that this is going to something like this is going to follow force this type of situation generated lots of tension here in venezuela because the government has already threatened the opposition and the national assembly that the assembly could be shut down if they continue to ignore the precedence you have people of modeling spite of this people here have gathered there are not massive like that like they were last year in this past year we have seen members of the opposition persecuted many have left the country some have been jailed so it's out completely different scenario from what we saw last year during the demonstrations against the president in spite of that most of the people we have spoken to here are saying that they're hosting that this is a first step for most of the people that are here are hoping that the international pressure will force the government to negotiate so the government has said so far that even though the united states did not recognize its governmental not the group which is composed of countries in the region to not acknowledge the presidency of

the pullout modeler saying that there were ninety seven representatives during his inauguration including representatives from countries like china russia and many other nations around the world and that's why mother rose basically saying that there's a that she won't recognize the type of international pressure. eight members of one family have been killed in yemen in a shelling attack by whose the rebels the four women and four children were killed in a government held village called shalala that's close to the border with saudi arabia news of the attack comes as the saudi led coalition says it destroyed a hoofy drone control center that was used in an attack on a military parade on thursday these are denying saudi reports that they've attacked the main oil refinery in the government held city of aden syrian state media is reporting several explosions have been heard near the capital damascus unconfirmed

reports suggest at least eight missiles were launched in the area it's not immediately clear if the attack was carried out by israeli warplanes which had been flying over lebanon on friday initial information suggests a warehouse in damascus airport was damaged the u.s. secretary of state might pompei o is in the united arab emirates as part of its six nation tour of the region the u.a.e. is one of four arab nations imposing a blockade on qatar both are america's close allies in its fight against armed groups and then there's iran the u.a.e. the along with saudi arabia considers terror on a regional rival curbing iran's influence in the region has been a top priority for donald trump's administration in yemen the u.s. .