to bring the a documentary and light. the heads of 4 u.s. tech giants are accused of stifling competition as a contentious congressional hearing. hello there i'm the star see a tale and this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up more than 150000 americans are confirmed dead from the coronavirus florida and california both record their highest single day told. the u.s. retreat from a nato ally 12000 troops ordered to pull out of germany and the european headquarters to be moved and scaling back the hugs coronavirus concerns for saudi

arabia to slash numbers on the pilgrimage and to bar muslims from outside. too dominant and too powerful that's what's being leveled against 4 of america's largest tech companies at a congressional hearing in washington d.c. the chief executives of facebook google amazon and apple have all been defending their business practices they're accused of stifling competition and monopolizing the industry free from regular action it's the culmination of a yearlong investigation by the u.s. congress detailing how the companies avoid liability on the current laws well our correspondent alan fischer joins us now from capitol hill for more on that hearing allan i believe it's just all wrapped up after more than 5 hours talk us through what we've had today. well the tech companies are essentially saying that they're

very american and that their end of it if they're smart and they make big profits and they say that they've had to be innovative and they've had to include people because if they didn't they would disappear in the way that 10 years ago if you were talking about the take giants he'd be talking about my space and friendster remember them no no one does because of course they fell away when facebook google and others took that space so they insist that what they're doing creates jobs it creates wealth it creates opportunity for many people it gives a platform for developers to bring their products to the market and that the shouldn't necessarily be broken up in fact jeff bezos said that they have less than 4 percent of the you keep the u.s. retail market but of course that includes things like gas stations going in and filling up your car with petrol it also includes food shopping in things like that although amazon is we knew were stretching into that the chairman of the subcommittee which is all about looking at anti trust essentially anti business

practices well right from the very start he made it clear that he thought there was a problem and it was something that the tech companies needed to address and have too much power this power stave off new forms of competition creativity and innovation and while these dumb firms may still produce some new innovative products their dominance is killing the small businesses and factoring in the overall dynamism out of the engines of the american economy well alan is on what sort of significance to today's proceedings actually hold. well it's important because both democrats and republicans see that there is a problem here they see it through slightly different lenses and certainly the republicans on the committee were concerned about bias even though this was meant to be all about business practices and. they carried their job but what is important here is that this subcommittee has been investigating this for more than a year the see there is a significant problem there and essentially this is

a short being fired across the bows of the tech giants no that show was also echoed by the president don't trump saying that if the tech companies didn't do something to stop their monopoly then he would take executive action if congress didn't act well it's as if congress might well i this committee has called for further hearings in september and the chairman of the committee he had from earlier he said that some of these companies need to be broken up some need to be regulated there has to be a change in the law and the legislation particularly in the digital age because a lot of these laws were drawn up at the beginning of last century when there were big companies around and they were taking advantage of their position so this is essentially the legislator saying to the big tech companies you really need to get your house in order and if you don't we'll do. our interests that live for us on capitol hill with all the losses thank you very much our. well as we've been saying apple facebook google and amazon are 4 of the 5 most valuable u.s.

companies let's take a look at the scale of their operations they have a combined market value of nearly 5 trillion dollars that's slightly more than the entire g.d.p. of japan the 3rd largest economy in the wild the annual revenue of the 4 tech giants combined is more than $770000000000.00 that's equal to the g.d.p. of saudi arabia the washington post reported that the 4 companies have spent more than $350000000.00 over the last decade on lobbying activities out of the estimated $4600000000.00 people connected to the internet google and facebook have crossed the 2000000000 use the mark apple's 1500000000 while amazon hasn't disclosed its reach we can now speak to kani guglielmo she is the editor in chief of the american tech website seen at and she joins us now live via skype from san francisco county thanks for being with us this was a hearing that was really meant to be about competition in the market but the dominance of these giants has not really been in question so why are we seeing this

specifically now. well what you're seeing is that they are getting even bigger where in the middle of a pandemic more people are at home ordering goods on line looking at online entertainment doing shopping searches engaging with people across video channels and other things and so this is been a long time coming this hearing is just the culmination as was mentioned earlier of a year long investigation but people have been looking at the tech industry for the past 3 or 4 years not just here in the united states but in the european union they are extremely large have billions of people on their platform they affect how we live how we work our we play in how we do business and so that is the culmination of what you're doing today it's a moment in time to take a look at their influence and if we need to do a reset from a legislative perspective this may be the time to do it and i certainly think given the tenor of today's hearings that you're going to see that happen well speaking of this kind of moment in time this white house certainly doesn't have the friendliest

relationship with big tech has that played into things. well you heard today from some of the republicans who endorsed the white house policy saying that facebook in particular has not been a platform that is friendly to conservative voices and their point of view the president united states has new social media to great effect and to you know propagate his message but he's now being reined in and so that was the tenor of a lot of the talk that you heard from the republicans just about the reach of the platforms and giving voice to some viewpoints on the democratic side you talked about the democrats talk about the power of business and the monopolistic practices that they're concerned about going into the future so it's fair to say that both sides of the political spectrum here in the united states are not particularly happy with the way that the tech businesses are doing business today this has all been incredibly high politicized i mean it's an election year so that's unsurprising but i do want to ask you mentioned there that republicans were

criticizing facebook my understanding is that facebook has been relatively friendly to conservative groups conservative ideas and really it's been twice so that's been trying to rein in the president so is there a realisation amongst the conservative groups about just where their power base is like. i don't know if there's been a realization but what we're seeing is that facebook which has been very hands off especially compared to twitter which is the primary platform that the president uses to get his message rapping is stepping up itself some of its efforts and because of that we're seeing you know just the start of some you know. canceling of messages or you know taking down a post what you're seeing also is that mark zuckerberg the c.e.o. of facebook is coming under pressure his own employees and his advertisers are boycotting facebook and there's going to be a business effect on that because the dissent from ation and misinformation that helped you know reframe if you will the 2016 u.s.

presidential election there is concern that that is happening today ahead of our november election here for president turning to google of mr pichai doesn't have the biggest profile but he was really consistently target as a day despite having a testify there a year ago we were surprised by that attitude. i mean they started from the get go going after google and china again there's been a year long investigation there are over $1300000.00 documents that have been gathered including internal company e-mails about their business practices i think what's at issue is not just that these companies have massive platforms which they do but that they also have products that compete with 3rd parties so the question becomes are they using the platform to advantage themselves in places where they compete with thousands that was certainly the question that came up for google for amazon and for apple which all deal with 3rd parties and so google got a lot of the attention because 90 percent of web searches have been through google

today a lot of the online advertising they are the largest beneficiary of online advertising so a lot of the business and eyeballs if you will of consumers happened on that platform and so we're going to continue to hear more about their business practices and exactly how they promote their products over others do you pay to get your products and services show up in google results that is extremely important placement in a google search results ok this is just another step in a very long conversation hit that from the scene that thank you for being with us great to get your insights on al-jazeera my pleasure thank you now the death toll from the krajina virus pandemic has surpassed 150000 in the united states that's the highest number of fatalities in any nation by far and accounts for nearly a quarter of the recorded global toll now 2 of the most populous states california and florida have both recorded their largest single day death tolls and the 2nd west affected country in the world brazil has reported

a record daily jump that infections and deaths nearly 70000 new cases and 1600 fatalities were confirmed just in the past day that brings the total number of infections to more than 2500000 well more than 90000 people have died. meanwhile the welfare program is warning at least 14000000 people in latin america are at risk of starvation as that region realize from the economic impact of this pandemic and a number of countries are being forced to extend lockdowns in an effort to try to stop the virus spreading out money or palo reports. the world food program estimates the number of people in latin america experiencing severe food insecurity could more than quadruple in 2020 in brazil which ranks 2nd in the world in the number of coded 19 infections a federal stopgap welfare program has made significant progress in curbing extreme poverty during the pandemic. but experts warn such measures have only

temporary benefits and latin american countries need to step up efforts to prevent more people from going into poverty. kovan a pandemic has just been devastating in latin america i mean we are already dealing with economic deterioration in many different issues but covert has come on top of it just in the areas where p. in this region alone we've seen a substantial increase in overall 11000000 people that are marching toward the brink of starvation so it's devastating and it's why we must act and we must act now so that we can bring some hope to people of the political destabilization mass migration economic deterioration a supply chain disruption that many people starve in addition to covered itself the world food program says many of those who will go hungry are workers from latin america's informal sector. in mexico where coded 900 cases have surpassed 400000 informal sector employees make up roughly half the nation's work force.

in. this implies that many mexicans will cross the poverty line those who previously managed to cross into the spectrum of the middle classes will return to poverty and these are not small numbers the national institute that measures poverty calculates this will amount to 10000000 mexicans. countries across latin america are struggling to strike a balance between public health and the health of their economies but with the loosening of restrictions and the reopening of businesses comes more contagion and calls for renewed lockdowns. after surpassing 9000 confirmed deaths on wednesday colombia became the latest country to announce an extension to their containment measures economists expect those. preventative mandatory isolation as a general criteria is to be extended until august 30th. latin america is now the region

of the world with the highest number of infections with more than 4 and a half 1000000 confirmed cases since the start of the code 19 pandemic. al jazeera . now the united states has announced plans to pull nearly a 3rd of its military personnel out of germany and the ongoing roué of the defense spending nearly half of the $12000.00 troops will be moved to other locations in europe including italy and belgium white house correspondent jim to help explains. making good on its threat to the u.s. announced a withdrawal of almost 12000 u.s. soldiers from germany it's a move the defense secretary insists will improve the military partnership between north american and european allies. i think we are we are excited about where we're going and what it will mean in terms of our ability to enhance to turn strengthen the strengthen the alliance in the process the cuts will reduce u.s. forces in germany by about a 3rd about $25000.00 will remain some soldiers will be repositioned within nato

countries including belgium and italy the rest will return to the united states the u.s. european command will also move to belgium but speaking to reporters on wednesday outside the white house u.s. president trump offered a different explanation for the move he said it was to punish germany for not contributing 2 percent of its g.d.p. as required for members of the north atlantic treaty organization. but. well germany's military spending is up it's still smaller relative to other nato allies as a driver of europe's economy republicans and democrats in the u.s. congress have long held germany should be paying more for share defense but most oppose removing u.s.

troops from germany fearing it will weaken regional stability and nato is capacity to push back against russia. the plan to withdraw u.s. troops from germany is expected to cost billions and could take years to execute and could be reversed if president trump does not win reelection in november can really help get al-jazeera the white house still ahead from here on out their fears about censorship the controversy surrounding a new social media no intent. to abuse death we'll have more on the plight of refugees trying to reach the mediterranean. however got a lot of hot weather loss of lives showers to across north america quite

a scattering of storms on display here across the plains pushing down towards the southeastern corner eastern seaboard also seeing some wet weather from time to time of those temperatures 37 in d.c. weakening up to 31 in new york got that heat even pushing north of the border 28 there for toronto what a rush of showers some of them very heavy pushing up towards tennessee towards kentucky around the appalachians we could see some thunder downpours possibly causing some flash flooding from time to time further south across the deep south that should be a little drier than it has been recently but you see the wet weather no really to far away up towards the primaries into central kind of the again some wet weather which was the west coast here is looking fine and dry still very hot in phoenix temperatures could touch 46 celsius on friday the high fire risk remaining across the southwest for the caribbean where we got yet more stormy weather coming into the leeward side as we go on through the next couple of days this developing system in may well become a tropical depression if not

a tropical storm that will bring flooding rains possibly some mudslides a big storm surge towards the lesser. antilles and also affecting parts of the virgin islands. that. came from the countryside to cairo and became part of a new life. they say this is different to be in the form of al-jazeera world meets the man who's been keeping a close eye on residential life in the big cities for decades but who may now be passing into history. to see for movies he wasn't dormant but he's now managed by a security company the doman of egypt on al-jazeera. we move to.

hello again i'm a star and let's remind you of our top stories here this hour the c.e.o.'s of facebook google amazon and apple have been defending their business practices at a u.s. congressional hearing they're accused of stifling competition and avoiding liability under current laws. brazil has reported a new record daily jump and corona virus infections and deaths nearly 70000 new cases and 1650 calories were confirmed in the past day brazil is the 2nd worst affected country in the wilds after the u.s. . and the u.s. is scaling back its military presence in germany and what the pentagon calls a strategic repositioning nearly $12000.00 troops are to be withdrawn powerful be relocated to other european cities. now opponents say turkish authorities will be

able to censor social media after parliament passed a new law to regulate foreign platforms the government says the legislation is needed to prevent cybercrime but the opposition alleges it could be used to stifle political dissent and criticism and cost the owner has more from istanbul. inside turkey's parliament m.p.'s voted to pass a law that aims to control what many have said is uncontrollable social media critics say it's another attempt to silence dissenting voices and threaten the freedom of expression the government argues the law is needed to enhance to come to realty of foreign platforms. and many worry that since the majority of the mainstream media here are already under government control the original 4 platform left for free to play try and learn it is to hold the restriction everything it's because they are being criticised on social media we are all against it as often the 1st the bill requires social media platforms with more than $1000000.00

domestic daily users such as facebook twitter. on you tube to open offices in turkey they're also required to appoint local representatives to implement the government's request to block and promote certain content if they don't comply they'll face stiff fines along with possible data speed cuts. human rights watch amnesty international and the un have campaigned against the law on the grounds it would lead to censorship and silence dissent. the governing party and says the new law will balance freedoms and obligations it says it doesn't want the closure of social media providers but wants to end what it considers insults bad language and harrison social media. the governing party insists the new law will balance freedoms and obligations it says it doesn't want the closure of social media providers but wants to and what it considers insults about language and harassment on social media borders and. this regulation doesn't aim any ban on

social media but to protect the basic rights and freedoms of the 55000000 turkish users on social media to protect their information and stop misinformation. in 2016 turkey tightened its quip on the internet after members of the outlawed command movement accused of plotting that years failed to launch an online attack against president trajectory pacha last year dozens of people were detained after speaking out online against turkey's measure of ration is in northern syria a senior level and as a translator when a court asks for user details from that social platform it can avoid sharing this puts the company above judiciary and is wrong having that freedom of expression must surely be protected in turkey many iran and maintain so-called forwards on social media platforms how they use these accounts with fake names and automated bots to attack their opponents this includes the government opposition and the

altgeld groups like the p.k. k. and villain movement for now it is. not clear how the turkish government is going to implement its new law but the rights group some glorious targets government critics. democracy and freedom of expression. al-jazeera. well the u.s. has added charges against 2 former to us employees and a 3rd person accused of spying for saudi arabia the 3 men were originally charged with accessing the private information of woman $6020.00 uses including prominent critics of the saudi royal family they're now facing 7 offenses instead of 2 including wire fraud and money laundering. says it's perplexed that saudi arabia is appealing against a ruling by the world trade organization which found the kingdom supports part broadcast of be out too and initially saudi arabia claimed it was vindicated by the w 2 year but says the decision to appeal shows saudi now understands it lost the

case has been accused of stealing content from castle base to be in sports including english premier league football matches the premier league is weighing up a saudi led takeover bid for the newcastle united club the opposition leaders in mali threatening a 2nd phase of civil disobedience if the president doesn't step down they say they'll be more protests after the muslim festival of president abraham is accused of corruption mismanaging the economy and failing to contain armed groups the opposition has rejected several attempts now by west african leaders to resolve that to speeders. well thousands of refugees trying to reach the mediterranean are facing extreme rights abuses and voting torture sexual assault and even death and the united nations as warning any half of the violence is perpetrated by those supposed to enforce the law alexia o'brien reports. the harrowing journey through the desert to libya and across the sea to europe can take weeks or even months.

migrants and refugees fleeing war poverty and persecution face not only scorching temperatures but what the u.n. describes as unspeakable brutality and inhumanity i'm not getting used to reduce cheating to steal monies on those dark study sticks that are in the report disease unexceptable a un investigation based on thousands of interviews outlined stories of sexual violence and torture even death and if found half of the violence was perpetrated by security forces immigration officers or border guards in the past we we believe that it was mainly smugglers on traffickers yet yes they are keep it be traitors or violence but the primary preparatory to violence are people who are soo pushed to predict. the un found that in 201819 at least 1750 people

died before reaching the mediterranean making it one of the most deadly routes for refugees and migrants in the world and it thinks that number is just the tip of the iceberg. it says the abuses experienced on these overland routes have remained largely invisible with more attention on the ocean where hundreds of people drown every year. this week alone hundreds have been brought ashore in europe rescued from sinking and overcrowded boats they are the lucky ones others a saint back to war torn libya to be held in detention centers often the u.n. says in appalling conditions on monday 3 sudanese migrants were shot dead on their return to libya when they tried to escape you have to understand countries like libya who is in conflict civil war people are going to use displacement is not see for the u.n. report calls for accountability and for the international community to show that it cares whether people like this live or die alexia brian al jazeera.

hong kong police have arrested 4 students for allegedly posting secessionist content on social media in the 1st place operation enforcing china's new national security law imposed 4 weeks ago the students belong to a group called student localism and are accused of advocating for hong kong's independence the new law grants police powers to arrest a suspect without a warrant. and now the annual muslim heads pilgrimage to mecca has begun under a very different circumstances assia millions usually travel to saudi arabia for the 1st time and modern history russia's from abroad are not allowed to take part so our ports. they've been coming in their millions every year from all over the world muslim pilgrims fulfilling a lifetime dream to perform one of their religion's 5 main pillars.

the sea of people waves upon waves and gulf in the city of mecca has become an image synonymous with the holy city. but this year it's completely different the coronavirus pandemic has meant the pilgrims are not able to travel saudi authorities have put under lockdown they've said only $1000.00 people will be allowed to perform hajj all of them either nationals or residents of saudi arabia. the annual pilgrimage is a huge source of revenue for the saudi government although there is little transparency from riyadh on how much exactly it brings in estimates put the figure in the billions of dollars. losing out on that as well as all the money from those who would usually perform the smaller pilgrimage of during the rest of the year is a big setback i think it's very significant because so here is your standing and influence in the islamic world is mainly that i was from 2 factors that guest one

is the horse and the cost to avoid him was and the organizer of the mosque in washington ritual and religious ritual it is i'll just ice 2020 has already been a tough year for the kingdom with oil prices reaching an all time low after a trade war with russia that saw the price of a barrel go as low as $27.00 to make things even worse the covert 19 pandemic has increased economic pressure on saudi arabia even more forcing the government to increase taxes. reduced salaries while many are commending saudi authorities for their decision to prohibit pilgrims to travel to mecca this year there are those who are critical questions are being asked about how the 1000 people being allowed to perform hajj are chosen and will there be a fair distribution of house passes to all nationalities living in the kingdom until now or thirties have failed to provide any information. in the past people of scrutinize saudi arabia for failing to deal with the huge crowds that converge on

the holy city on far too many occasions people have died due to stampede or failure by the government to safeguard their security like when a construction crane fell on worshippers in 2015 this year the criticism is over the odds failure to deal with small crowds in a clear and transparent manner. are just. kind of addresses al jazeera and these are the headlines the c.e.o. of facebook google amazon and apple have been defending their business practices at a u.s. congressional hearing they're accused of stifling competition and avoiding liability and the current laws allan fessor has more on how they defended themselves the tech companies are essentially saying that they're very american and that their end of it if they're smart and they make big profits and they see that they've had to be innovative and they've had to include people because if they didn't they would

disappear in the way that 10 years ago if you were talking about the take joints he'd be talking about my space and friendster remember them no no one does because of course they fell away when facebook google and others took that space so they insist that what they're doing creates jobs it creates wealth it creates opportunity for many people. now the death toll from the corona virus pandemic has surpassed 150000 in the united states that's the highest number of fatalities in any nation by far and accounts for nearly a quarter of the recorded global death toll 2 of the most populous states that's california and florida have both recorded and then largest single day death tolls. brazil has reported a new record daily jump in corona virus infections and deaths nearly 70000 new cases and 1600 fatalities were confirmed just in the past day brazil is the 2nd west affected country in the wild after the u.s. turkey's parliament has passed

a social media law which rights groups say will give the government grace the power to increase online censorship sites like facebook and twitter that will be required to have local representatives in turkey and they also need to store use this data inside the country making it easier for with or if he's to access companies that break the law or could be fined or effectively blocked hong kong police have arrested 4 students for allegedly posting secessionist content on social media this is the 1st operation and forcing china's national security law since it was imposed 4 weeks ago the students belong to a group called student localism and are accused of advocating for hong kong's independence the new law grants police powers to arrest suspects without a warrant well those are the headlines i'll have more news for you here after counting the cost stay with us. a global pandemic mass protests demanding change economic recession and geopolitical tensions not to mention the small matter

of a looming election join me steve clemons in conversation with leading voices on the bottom line your weekly take on u.s. politics and society on al-jazeera. counting the cost on al-jazeera a look at the world of business of economics this week as rich nations cornered the market for covert $19.00 vaccines and treatments what does that mean for the world's poor we find out about the real cost of developing drugs. i'm joined now in scotland's east kilbride where the world's largest trial of possible coated 19th treatments has produced results that are already being used to save lives. and a hack.