it is the one that has suffered so famously but boeing as a company they will get over this they got over the 787 dreamliner and get over the problems with this aircraft but the handling of this hasn't been so great and again this is why the company has suffered so badly and its insurance it is always a pleasure talking to you thank you for joining us thank you of course another issue we haven't addressed for the airline industry is pollution you have 800000 odd flights every day and that's a lot of competitions but the growing pressure for greener skies is resulting in change things like more efficient engines and even electric planes once again here's natasha butler at the. stylish sleek and fully electric the evy asian prototype is a glimpse into the future and more environmentally friendly flying powered by batteries the 9 seats a plane on display at the paris air show would produce ciro carbon emissions and be fueled by sustainable sources the c.e.o. of the israeli start up behind the plane says he could fly commercially by 2022 can

we build an all electric 787 to compete with today's planes were absolutely none other it acknowledges not even close to that but to fly the speed of this size and to beat those designs that are out there says the seventy's or eighty's well here it is this was build the way we believe planes in the 21st century should be build electric planes could be a sustainable option for short flights but cutting c o 2 emissions on medium and long haul travel is a bigger challenge aviation officials say that the airline industry is responsible for 2 percent of the world's carbon emissions climate activists say that is nearer to 5 percent and one of the problems is that the technology needed to reduce airlines carbon footprint is still out of reach some airlines are experimenting with hybrid technology and biofuels nicholas chavez company is working on

a hybrid plane with the air boss the european plane maker aims to have an electric aircraft by 2035 years we are all committed to reduce by half 2050 our emissions and the larger companies such as ours are very interested to make sure that we can take the quickest way to access that dog there are nearly 100 fuel powered aircraft at the paris air show a potent sign of how far the industry has to go to become more ecological but with the air passenger numbers expected to double in the next 2 decades there is a sense of urgency in the air. now last month italian lawmakers did something interesting they approved a non-binding motion to pay creditors and supplies with many treasury bills which in simple terms means they want to create an alternative currency to the euro the move rattled the markets because on the face of it such a move could lead to an italian exit from the euro italy's euro skeptic deputy

prime minister my terror cell vini is keen on the idea of the parallel currency. and it comes at a crucial time given the coalition there is locked in a battle with the e.u. over its budget plan brussels wants rome to cut its public debt and to rein in its budget deficit or it could be fined run struggle with its huge debt is well known it has the largest debt in the eurozone $2.00 trillion dollars if you can imagine that as a percentage of gross domestic product that is the 2nd highest after greece and more than double the 60 percent limits set by the stability and growth pact failure to bring down the debt could lead to a fine of $3800000000.00 so doesn't look brilliant for italy which exited its 3rd recession in a decade we're going to talk about this with nicola nobility who is a senior economist at oxford economics is on skype from milan today nice to have you with us nicola one of you explain 1st of all this sort of quantify currency

which the italians they use now how does that actually work in in simple terms well basically what happened is that like a couple of couple of weeks ago the parliament passed. unanimously the emotion we should. from a practical point of view doesn't doesn't mean a lot in in italy to pass this motion in no way should they were basically committing the government to accelerating to payment of the public administration commercial debt also today issuance of for small government bonds. and these from an economic point of view doesn't make sense doesn't make sense at all because if you want to pay the the basically your your creditor why not is suing a normal

a normal bones normal boat and then use the usual to pay to pay them ok i'm trying to say the same and so the point or the theory however you want to put it in italy exiting the euro you know we went through this what was it i go with gregg's it as it was now and then which then spawned bragg's it and now i don't even know what you would call this one but what would be the theory behind wanting to leave the euro currency well i would think i would call it a rivet exit. where a nice hearing it or for italy. is that they want to some some politicians so just that italy will be better of our side or you'll rule without much weaker currency and we depose ability of of printing as much money as they want. but in order to finance more dept. we don't think that the problem of

italy are related to 2 currency or the lack of the say fiscal expansion so in our view this would be a huge mistake creating probably a huge financial crisis which nets what very negative implications it is a silly also on a bit of a collision course with the european union there's talks of potential fines if i don't manage to bring the debt down below the opinions prescribed levels there could be a commission sent started started the process to 2 loans the assess if they're sick person procedure against italy and these he my view is quite likely to happen and probably is quite like into up and as early as the summer now what's happening from from the italian front is that they want to make sure that they

comply with the with the rules but this looks incredibly difficult at the moment for a few reasons one of them a reason is that the economy is stuck in stagnation at the other and the other problem looking forward is that the politicians in italy and i think in more of salvini labor leader there are going debt italy needs some sort of trump for fiscal stimulus so they want they want to cut taxes but there is no there is no fiscal room for that actually because you said earlier that you felt that this sort of new c.d.o. currency bond whatever you want to call it wasn't the answer to italy's fiscal problems in your opinion what is the answer i think at the finke at the moment to eat early should should focus in. steadily reducing some of the

expenditure so italy should to say to the markets ok we're going to we're going to slowly cut the expenditure we're going to put the dept on a sustainable part and we're gonna we're going to reduce the r. certainty around these unfortunately i don't think given the political situation affinities is going to happen. nicole are talking italian economics with us this week thank you so much for your time thank you finally one for the parents out there now let's be honest how many times have you been busy or tired or frankly just can't be bothered and you put the kids in front of the t.v. or a tablet or a smartphone we do it fine it is a part of life in 2019 but the issue of screen time is troubling a lot of us now there are any number of studies out there both for and against in april for example the world health organization recommended children under one year old shouldn't be exposed to electronic screens at all and that children between the ages of $2.00 and $4.00 should have no more than an hour of what it calls sedentary

screen time each day but equally screen time particularly educational apps can be incredibly beneficial to young people who are growing up with digital technology being the norm rather than the exception and then there are those trying to reverse the trend young start ups who see the benefit of technology but in a different way this is one of them yo toe a device which aims to give children access to music and audiobooks without a screen or the all hearing smart speaker bender is with us now from london he is the founder of your tone and great to have you with us ben why don't you give us the quick rundown 1st of all on how your toe works only because you know heaven forbid if something doesn't have a touch screen these days how does it work. well you know we've built this we built this products with our own kids in mind in fact my co-founded iow we both have kids around the same time and we're both massive techno technophiles we have all the

kind of gadgets in the house but we really didn't we felt a little bit uncomfortable about putting i pads and front of one and 2 year olds so our background was really around music an audio content so we wanted to find a way to give kids access to audio based content but in a way that they were in control. so we built this prototype we built a kind of a smart because the kids except there's no microphone in there so there's no prissy issues and then we have these we have these like smart cards that children put into the device and it starts playing music stories learning. podcasts and radio just just hold it up for me again if you would please ben about to see that and. ok so that's just a piece of card as a got any magic on it and our cane is the yeah there's a little chip inside this card this is really similar to all of our contacts credit cards a little chip in and these are these cards are really a key that unlock the content which then streams to our warrior to player ok ok

let's talk about then the tech 1st before we talk about the business model is it as it were what sort of reaction have you seen from the kids with this sort of thing because they are there's no 2 ways about it they're getting used to pressing a screen to having a screen to having that interactivity with them all the time what sort of reaction do you get from this idea of a pop in a card in there and getting a story told to them sure so i mean we're not completely anti screens you know we do live in a world view big screens and you know we don't want to keep kids completely away from that but we see the audio based content allows them to carry on playing and getting physical exercise while they're actually engaging with the content so. what we're seeing so far is really strong engagement we're getting over 8 hours a week on average listening time per device which we think of that 8 hours the screen time that's that's the that's a great thing and the kind of content the people love the really engage with the

radio station we have are in kind of music radio station and they love the in the blight and constant use of roald dahl content coming and it's stories which are very strong but also we have cause for being quite popular as well right so that takes us to the business model and you mention 2 huge authors there enid blyton and roald dahl is that how important is that to the success of the whole venture about getting that sort of content on board like any kind of contemplate formica netflix or something content is king the old cliche and it's really important that we have those key key titles in all the key markets we're in but there's also option c. for us to create new content and so we're. investing in content ourselves using some of the interactive capabilities of our device and yeah there's this pressure in the educational content things like phonics for learning and for learning english phonics is very important and it's really the sound of the letters and

parents often struggle with that so struck parents often struggle to support their child's learning of phonics you said you weren't totally averse obviously to touch screens in the light because as you say kids are growing up in that in that era now what's your view on screen time you know you get the likes of the world health organization saying children on the one should not have any screen time and children up to 5 should have very little what's your sort of view on how much is too much but i think parents need to make their own call on what they what they let their children experience i know from from my own personal use we try to limit our kids to 2 hours max so we can and i do see their behavior like they literally turn into kind of zombies when the when they're front of the screen you can get any sense out of them and i think one of the things that the screen based content does is it doesn't help the imagination and creativity of the child because everything's presented for them in in a very rich visual form whereas with the audio based content they have to make the

pitches themselves in their brains and there's color studies out there showing that already a best content is actually better for creativity and imagination so we're not we're not brilliant to screen your work we don't to be one of those families that completely restricts their children because they could be socially excluded when the other kids in the playground talking about poor patrol or something but i think the w.h.o. guidelines that just came out a pretty pretty good us a pretty good start you know they've done a ton of research and this generation of children really are the 1st they're the guinea pigs or the 1st generation of children to go out with these native touchscreens and so more research is needed to find out what the really real effect is you know patrol i'm unnervingly familiar with that ben gerri thank you so much for your time do appreciate it. thank you. and that is our show for this week would love to hear from you though probably on the top screen you can tweet me or message me direct them. to use the hashtag a j c t c as well as an e-mail account on the costa dot net it's our address and there's more on my. page as reports

and entire episodes for you to catch up on plus links to the latest business. but that is it for this edition of counting the cost i'm kemal santa maria from the whole team thanks for joining us the news on al-jazeera. mexico's most popular soap opera is changing society by tackling women socially she is head only in its last episode so books discovers the drama behind the scene as it reduces data hotshots facing the mothers of disabled children and the from the social stigmas by broadcasters and the well. challenged on al-jazeera. capturing a moment in time. snapshots of other lives. other

stories. providing a glimpse into someone else's work. inspiring documentaries from impassioned filmmakers i'm at the front lines i feel like i know it i have the data prove. witness on al-jazeera. this is al-jazeera. the washington is our life from the headquarters in doha i'm dead you know gator coming up in the next 60 minutes u.s. president donald trump says he called offer a tell the story strikes against iran with minutes to spare to avoid iranian casualties. as regional tensions escalate a report says the u.s.

is preparing to evacuate hundreds of contract from a military base in iraq over security concerns. people in georgia are protests for a 2nd day against russia on the interface and flow. and president vladimir putin temporarily bans flights to the country. and hong kong police dismantle barricades around their headquarters but demonstrators are determined to see a controversial extradition bill completely scrapped. hello u.s. president donald trump says he called off retaliatory strikes on iran just 10 minutes before they were due to go ahead attacks were ordered against 3 iranian targets after an american surveillance drone was shot down over the strait of

hormuz on thursday but trump says he changed his mind to avoid killing more than 150 people iran on its part says it chose not to target a u.s. spy plane which was flying near the drone and its airspace the u.s. has requested an emergency closed door meeting of the u.n. security council on monday to discuss tensions with iran and the u.n. secretary general and telling you that terrorists has called on both sides to have nerves of steel and avoid further escalation from washington alan fischer reports this was the reason the u.s. was prepared to launch an attack the doning of an unmanned military drone by iran. these pictures are said to be the missile launch which are really in television says was filmed by the islamic republic's revolutionary guards the u.s. said the drone was over international waters a claim disputed by to run donald trump says while 3 sites had been identified for the strikes he canceled the operation they came in they said sure we're ready to go

we'd like a decision i said i want to know something before you go how many people will be killed. in this case it rains i said how many people are going to be killed. so i'd like to get back to you on that great people these generals they said they came back said sir approximately 150 and i thought about it for a 2nd i said you know what they shot down an on demand. drone plane whatever you want to call it and here we are sitting with $150.00 dead people and that would have taken place probably within a half an hour after i said go ahead and i didn't like it i didn't think it was i didn't think it was proportionate and terror and the revolutionary guard put on a display of what it said was wreckage from the u.s. drone recovered and a really intended trick the head of its space division claims a manned u.s. spy plane near detroit was not targeted that i will not see at the same moment when

the aircraft was being tracked another spy aircraft called p. 8 was flying close to this drone that aircraft is man and has around 35 crew members while we could have targeted that plane it was our right to do so and yes it was american but we didn't do it we hit the unmanned aircraft. well secretary of state my point is heading to the region to talk to allies saudi arabia and the united arab emirates the u.s. special representative in iran has been brian who promised the u.s. would continue to exert maximum economic and diplomatic pressure on iran our diplomacy does not give iran the right to respond with military force in iran needs to meet diplomacy with diplomacy and not military force iran's foreign ministry responded saying it beats diplomacy with diplomacy respect with respect and war with zealous defense the rise in tension in the region has led

a number of international airlines to cancel or divert flights away from the area america's federal aviation administration says in the statement because of heightened military activity it is banning all u.s. carriers from operating in the gulf region a situation it says it's keeping under review alan fischer al jazeera washington meanwhile the reuters news agency is reporting that hundreds of u.s. contractors will be evacuated from an iraqi military base over her attention as security threats it says the evacuation from the balad base will take place in 2 stages hundreds of military contractors work there it was hit by a mortar attack last week but no one was injured let's talk to john hendren he's joining us from washington d.c. to 1st tell us if we're getting any more information about these reported evacuations off american contractors at iraq's balad air base. well what we

know daryn is that about half of the 800 contractors at that base are being evacuated starting now over the next 10 days we're talking about 400 people who work for 2 different companies lockheed martin and sally port lockheed martin is there supporting the f. 16 airplanes doing maintenance and that sort of thing sally port is a contractor that does a wide variety of things including dining facilities and security and wastewater this has to be a very significant threat that base it has been attacked many times it used to be a u.s. air base now it's where the iraqi air force is it's a huge sprawling base and i've been inside the security room there were they can spot where a mortar comes from or a rocket comes from and immediately retaliate so when surgeons who are firing on that base have to fire and then immediately leave whatever is going on there is not

the same run of the mill sort of small term attacks that have often happened in the past they're evacuating a large number of people and that means they must have specific information about an upcoming attack. exactly what that is we don't know all right we'll have to wait and find out said john but on the other assume of course are they events of the past 24 hours in the u.s. president's calling off the strikes on iran what is the range of possibilities now in that standoff. well what president trump does depends a lot on who he's listening to this is a president who after all was elected saying he would get the u.s. out of iraq and afghanistan dividing his base with another unpopular war is not something he really wants to do this is a guy who's gearing up for an election he's got support varying from 37 to 45 percent at any given time so it's clear that this is not something he personally

really wants to get into however john bolton his national security director is a long time iraq hawk and he's getting pressure from republicans congresswoman lynn cheney said that weakness is provocative and she's giving the president some heat in the past few hours on this so that the president put those planes on alert for 24 hours after the initial call on whether to strike or not that period has passed so we appear to be out of the period of danger right now but any little provocation including one at one of these iraqi air bases could launch another retaliatory strike or a potential strike so anything from diplomacy to outright war is possible at this point and the president seems to be holding his hand but any little incident could change that ok and john hendren with an update from washington thank you let's take

the song with hillary mann leverett she served in the white house and was director for iran in the persian gulf at the national security council she's also joining us from washington nice to have you with us again on al-jazeera are we out of the a period of danger. no we are not out of the period of danger president trump has had iran in his sights since the the campaign in 2016 he's having ronit sites into almost diametrically opposed ways one because he sees iran as it a very important country in the region and even on the world stage and energy to international and energy dynamics and geopolitics but he also sees iran is as a problem a convenient problem to beat up on so he has pursued this dual track approach since 2016 which is both to hold out the product possibility of a bigger better deal with iran but also that he can get very close if not go over the edge to military confrontation in you say that he has iran in his sights but

does he actually have a coherent strategy when it comes to iran. well i would not call it a constructive strategy but i do think that he is. underestimated in his determination to do something with iran i think the president's 1st choice is to have a dialogue that would lead to a bigger better deal and i think that the launching of an attack or ordering the launching of an attack and then ordering it to stop is a message to the iranians i'm not sure that they will get it it may not be all that coherent but i think it is a message to the iranians that look the president the united states can attack but has stepped back has actually stepped back and is now waiting for iran to come to a negotiation or to a dialogue i think it seemed to show we run and what we've seen from iran really is that there are new in no mood to talk nor are they in any mood to renegotiate the

internationally certified nuclear deal so what is iran strategy on the other hand. well yes of course iran is not going to want to negotiate or talk on these terms but the problem for iran is that president trump has these 2 goals either to get iran into a bigger better geo which could potentially be good for iran or to take even stronger i think military action against iran both of those goals can in trump's perspective from the white house's perspective serve his purpose either he has this great deal to advertise as he's going into a reelection campaign which he just launched this week or he's got you know he's got himself looking tough against iran on the world stage when he calculates and he may be wrong but i think this is the calculation that the europeans and even the chinese and the russians are not going to come to iran aid and so either he will

benefit because he's the triumphant person who can bring about a bigger better deal or he can watch iran be fundamentally weekend with no one coming to its aid either way trump thinks that he he will have a win what about regional countries because we know of course o.t. arabia israel and iran we also know that trump out a phone call with the crown prince mohammed bin some money in which they discussed iran amongst other things in the past 24 hours how much do these u.s. allies actually influence america's thinking and decision making on iran. well i think they certainly in influence and they have a path into secretary of state pompei own national security advisor john bolton i'm not sure how much they actually impact president trump's thinking he has had he's gone back and forth with great praise and great to stay.