and as rising influence in the region party delegates will need to choose new leaders who can navigate those tensions along with the country's response to the coronavirus vietnam has been successful in containing it so far with strict quarantine and extensive testing and tracing but like the rest of the world its economy has suffered growth has slowed to its lowest level in more than 30 years but is on track to recover and the party's new leaders will need to make sure that happens florence italy al-jazeera. it's good to be with us how interesting it here in doha the headlines and i'll just say our leaders from around the world are attending a virtual summit to address the effects of climate change previous conferences of focused on causes this is the 1st on coping with the effects the u.s. is promising global leadership and commitment and president biden knows that we

have to mobilize an unprecedented ways to meet a challenge that is fast exhilarating and you know as we have limited time to get it under control without reason united states immediately rejoined the paris agreement and we intend to do everything we possibly can to ensure that cut 26 results in an ambitious climate action in which all major emitter countries raise ambitions significantly and in which we help protect those who are the most vulnerable. the u.s. pharmaceutical company says that early lab tests show that its covert 19 vaccine appears to work against new variants found in the u.k. and south africa more studies are needed to confirm the results the findings have yet to be peer reviewed the more infectious strains are spreading fast in a number of countries germany's health minister says the berlin expects e.u. regulators to approve the curve it 19 vaccine developed by astra zeneca at the

university of oxford this coming friday concerns are growing there about the more infectious u.k. variant that is spreading rapidly russia's president vladimir putin is tonight allegations of owning a lavish palace on the black sea opposition leader alexina bound they published a 2 hour long video making the claims last week is investigation team alleges that the palace was built for putin through an elaborate corruption scheme in yemen thousands of people are protesting against the trumpet ministrations decision to designate who the rebels as a foreign terrorist organization are just as have been rallying in the capital sanaa and other hooty controlled provinces the current bite that ministration is reviewing the designation aid groups say that it will disrupt their operations and harm the ongoing peace process. what is fear here on al-jazeera after counting the cost next.

oh i'm fully back to grow this is counting the cost on al-jazeera you look at the world of business and economics this week the trillion dollar man president biden sponsor revive the pandemic economy prospal misses to create millions of new skilled and green jobs and is it too late to reset relationships with old friends after being spurned by trump europe has been pushing through its own economic and

geopolitical agenda that could be problematic for biden's administration we'll get the view from the e.u. when we talk to us foreign minister ross nigeria's population will double by the middle of the century can farmers meet the demand the united nations is warning drought and terror attacks could lead to famine in the north of the country. the 1st major legislation for president joe biden unsurprisingly is getting the pandemic under control with a massive injection of money targeting the most needy the headline number $1.00 trillion dollars will go some way to provide an additional shot to the economy but what about his other plans for the economy all joining his campaign tackling inequality and wealth disparities where top of the agenda the selection of his economic team gives us a hint at what to expect janet yellen will be the 1st woman to become the treasury secretary. she urged lawmakers to spend big to save the economy and worry about

debt later yellen also said corporations and the rich will need to pay their fair share near a ton dan is the 1st woman of color to head the office of management and budget tendon was brought up by a mother who had to rely on food stamps to feed her family after her divorce and supports a strong social safety net. a day or more nigerian born a day and more will be the 1st black person to serve as deputy treasury secretary he wrote on twitter he wanted to make sure that our economy works not just for the wealthy but for the hard working people who make it one cecelia rules will be the 1st black chair of the council of economic advisors rules is an expert in labor markets and has champions paid sick leave last year nearly 34000000 workers about a quarter of the u.s. workforce lacks a sick leave and according to accountancy firm deloitte the pandemic is going to make us income inequality worse it says

a proportion of wealth held by the richest 10 percent has jumped from about 61 percent to 70 percent and for the top one percent it rose from 17 percent to 26 percent that's over the past 30 years while the economy is expected to eke out a small gain for oh 2020 the unemployment rate stood at 6.8 percent in december getting people back into work will be a priority biden has pledged 2 trillion dollars for infrastructure projects to create millions of jobs that includes $1000000.00 jobs in the auto industry as a sector moves to producing electric cars another $250000.00 jobs will be created by capping abandoned oil and natural gas wells and reclaiming abandoned coal hardrock and uranium mines but the most ambitious challenge starts by rejoining the paris climate accord which president delighted in leaving biden is planning to invest $400000000000.00. over 10 years in green technology in the process creating

10000000 jobs while they say events like wars pandemics and natural disasters that give countries the urge to renew and set inequalities right can biden see this ambitious plan through joining me now from oxford england is professor william barnard from democrats abroad he's also the author of dixiecrats and democrats professor bernard thank you for talking to us on counting the cost so what do we learn from the president's selection of his economic team is it business as usual or can we expect greater oversight silva the financial sector but i think many of them are very familiar faces i mean he's a partner secretary of treasury janet yellen has been met with almost universal approval across the political spectrum she has 20 years experience with the fed itself and with the government if she is in the center cisco. and in 4 years as as chair and i think generally looked upon as a very competent individual and one who is perhaps is better is best prepared to

take over the treasury as anyone in recent 'd history biden try to think to appeal he knows he has to keep his party you know he tried to peel across the board in his in his appointments. one of one of them the deputy treasury secretary ideato of is a digeridoo a lawyer but he has worked both sides of the r.s.s. in that he was he was timothy geithner's. chief of staff in the treasury years ago and they work also with the warren in the consumer finance bureau so he gets along across the board there are some people who have been critical of some of the backgrounds some of the previous statements of some of the appointee but mostly this is a middle of the road leftists that are group that has appeal pretty much across the political spectrum right and precisely on that i mean working with both sides of the aisle the democrats have a slim majority in the house are you worried that some policy decisions will be

bogged down the or even watered down as a result one of the lessons of the. reaction to the crisis back in march and april it was that we did things right for the 1st time in an economic crisis we were both we were big and we weren't quick that slow down after the 3rd bill passed by and we had some difficulty getting the last bill through they will be difficult i think is a is a hard left but nonetheless i think it's doable we do need in my view any of you most economists at it another significant the stimulus package in order to bridge the gap to when the economy recovers after the career of the bar is under control and needs to be relatively big there will be some disagreements with that they're already so wrong least particularly in the book a survey of republican circles and also from so depressed about the size of the debt which is this has grown enormously i mean the response to this economic crisis was it an order of magnitude greater than the response back in 20072009 well

it is we did it right for the 1st time in some time and it worked well but we need one more push right to get through it it will be difficult to get through a closely divided senate and house right and one of the much anticipated pounds is a 4 interest factor and these usually take a decade or more in planning to completion and so on do you think there are projects that are already shovel ready from a political point of view obviously biden needs to show that jobs are being created a by the time the next election comes around how how will he be able to do that if . you know we've been talking about a major infrastructure bill for well over a decade the federal highway system which started in the $1000.00 twenties and then in that the sixty's with the interstate highways being built under eisenhower of they need they badly are in need of repair roads and bridges of the country need a great deal of attention we talked about this for some time typically that

infrastructure bill received support on both sides of the out of both parties have an interest in construction jobs and getting the economy going all the rest so it is perhaps a little surprising that we haven't been able to do something to this point i think we're at the point where it but joe recognition is there that in something major needs to be done it will be done whether or not there are no shovel ready programs many of these have been in planning for quite some time it does take some time to get up and going but nonetheless especially needed and i think you will see some national infrastructure a major way this recession what about inequality how do you start to redress inequality i mean as a proposed tax on those who earn more than $400000.00 a year will that be sufficient. you know this is one of the fundamental problems facing all us major every major economies around the world the major advanced economies have all seen a growing disparity in economic wealth within themselves while the around the world

over the last decade has been much raising up of relatively poor countries and a leveling of a good deal but within countries particular major best countries is going to growing disparity is or most difficult and entrenched the problems that we face is also one that isn't easily amenable we don't know quite what to do. it is occurred under governments of all stripes left and right they just occurred in almost every advanced country we are a little a little bit see how best to deal with the one thing we can do is not enact tax policies as was done in the last in the situation tax cuts go across america to the upper. ranks within the income structure of the not enact policies that exacerbate make worse the disparity of income but there are any number of measures including support for education trying to putting the wage increases in the rest that will have to be taken that too is a long term problem and not want easily i mean of but what about a wealth tax do you think there should be a while tax on on you know those newly minted techie enough for instance i think

there are probably other ways better ways of raising a significant sums of money well taxes have proven in the past and they've done that is up to a number of countries but particularly in europe not to be particularly effective in generally have been abandoned for some time because they thought it was easy enough to move capital around and capital flies from one place to another with a bunch of button these days of so. starr this is certainly the easiest or best way in raising funds it will be necessary there will be just tax increases to be sure the tax rebalances and all the rest but i don't think your churches. thank you very much professor william barnard for talking to us on counting the cost thank you for your time. now president trump antagonized many of america's traditional allies including the european union they were demands that nato nations should contribute more funding

to the military alliance tariffs on steel and as an outgoing solve all more tariffs on aircrafts while the biden administration would like to reset many of those relationships they are stumbling blocks like the e.u.'s decision to strike an investment agreement with china well let's talk through what the relationship could look like with the minister of foreign affairs and european affairs of malta every bartolo foreign minister bartolo thank you very much for talking to us think on counting the cost here at al-jazeera so let's start with the relationship the future relationship between the european union and america the biden administration the new administration in the u.s. has expressed an interest in working closely with its traditional allies i imagine for that that come says a welcome relief for the european union that there's a new administration at the white house yes and even on his 1st day by then the fact that his head will be rejoining the paris agreement on climate change

and also regarding the world health organization that is very welcome. at the same time we must not expect by then to be a miracle worker it doesn't mean that the new administration. it's a new dawn it's a new day but even that new day might have clouds might have storms might have disagreements but the style of why there is totally different disagreements doesn't mean that we turn against each other into enemies we sit down and discuss why it's going to be possible with the by the administration they are disagreements a lot of them on terrorists for instance for the european union i want to know to work closely with the u.s. to return to that old relationship what are the conditions if any probably from both sides in the sense that like for example the vestment agreement with china it also depends on how they buy the administration is going to position position

itself regarding regarding china. what we expect from the by the station is to have a multilateral approach that we can sit down and discuss. and not expect the world to simply divide into supporters or opponents right that even when we disagree can still agree on the european union for instance demand that the u.s. drop the tariffs on the e.u. that the trumpet ministration imposed but i think that the negotiation will show that both sides will have to make major concessions while we talk about this but let's keep in mind that the 1st priority i think of the by the administration is not going to be what happens beyond america's shores but what happens inside the united states because the united states is a broken society there are a lot of important issues that have to be addressed in terms of the effect of the pandemic and also in terms of the wide painful polarization that there is in

american society right well let's focus on the e.u. itself right now it introduced a trillion dollar budget and stimulus 540000000000 for green investment what does that mean to you exactly now i think that is very important i think it's very positive that we are putting together a comic development and what we're going to do about the climate we we have come to a point now it's a tipping point where unless we really take serious it you know steps to deal with the economic and the development of the climate emergency at the same time we will not save this planet. at the moment perhaps the only thing we can do and it's very important even somebody like david attenborough says this we will slow down global warming eventually if we really slow it down we can reverse it we can only do that with the kind of the comic development the model of consumption the model of of

production our lifestyle how we travel how we consume and how we produce things so the fact that we are combining those 2 together and especially this is where perhaps the pandemic is offering us an opportunity because we need to reimagine we need to reinvent our economy and the best way to do it now was to come back ok i know it's a slogan to build back better but the but we really need to do that and it's not now it's not a choice anymore it has really become a necessity what is important is that we start taking steps and that it doesn't take too long to make use of these funds because there are countries where it is really a problem thank you very much foreign minister bartolo for talking to us thank you for your time we thank you thank you. now when you think about the nigerian economy we have an oversize you of the oil industry it's a big contributor to the government's revenue but it represents just about 10 percent of the economy about 50 percent of the country's $200000000.00 plus

population are dependent on the agriculture industry which represents about a 5th of the economy but it doesn't bring in the money like oil and is facing some big challenges especially when you think by the middle of the century it would have to feed a population that is likely to double to more than 400000000 right now the united nations has warned north west nigeria is at risk of famine due to the pandemic climate change and violence drought desertification and loss of forests are changing the agricultural landscape threatening the livelihoods of 40000000 people and that's led to clashes between roaming cattle herders and small. family owned farms adding to the problem nigeria's cattle population has doubled to 20000000 since 1981 and. killed dozens of farm workers in retribution for cooperating with the nigerian military attacks on farmers climate change and the pandemic also threatening food reserves the old farmers association of nigeria

warned that declined to less than $30000.00 metric tons a fraction of what it requires to feed the population kabir abraham is the group president of the old farmers association of nigeria. he sat down with a correspondent to talk about the challenges. and government face began by asking him if programmes led by the world bank to reverse the impact of these education and climate change were working. many people all over the world are in denial over especially climate change whether we are very conscious of the desire to get in because we're in the energetic public and then all these projects when they come in there's a lot of one walk i see in them well aware that they are going on and there's a lot of improvement in our culture in farming the only thing that we have not yet seen is the translation into the yield but that's certainly

a lot of what is going on and the impact is felt not 1111 persistent problem it's been an age long problem the crisis between farmers and cattle herders and their walkable solutions in place to deal with this and how is it impacting the culture you see in nigeria had this problem became what he saw. i believe in the last 20 years and then unfortunately last 20 as. is the peter during which politics came in here's a thought we had a very good relationship between farmers. and pastoralists or harder because we all belong to the same family if you have a heart of cattle or what or sheep or whatever you like a farmer so we have in far way there's a lot of synergy between us and the met gala. when i was growing up. i used to escort my father to the farm on horseback and there would be this will and the

people had been in their hearts very at the at the border of the farm they will be waiting for us to finish harvesting they would go in and it's the residue and then the animals. will drop their dung and that's what we use for what lies are so we had a symbiotic relationship we took what others would call what they were merely very small skirmishes at the most you know the percentage who use the stick you know the stick that they used to call i mean in that way you talking loudly and then you can just see that the they had to suffer the same shit as a problem because their body their kidnappers all involved in this whole thing the captive wrestler is not necessarily a huntsman he is somebody who was so hard that he doesn't know so basically are there. things that have been put in place like solutions put in please either by the farmers and hundreds of interest or by the government community to deal with

that so many own. efforts by the farmers how does the government and organizations even so like you as the id and there are so many organizations here in this country that but in the in the peace conference is that we have we have had training by the clinton delhi is the truth on money and crisis management with the how does whether the farmers whether i will have started from there we know how to deal with each other how to accommodate each other how to have a synergy between us. it's going on and then the government is doing a program here they call it the. transformation plan where it will say any sense of a sudden rise we had to give them all the facilities that they like and give them education because most of the problem is lack of education so a lot of what is going on if it looks like the problem in the agriculture sector are so numerous from the provision of include the conflict between farmers and

herders. water problems climate change and all that. these government intervention programs to solve these problems working. i believe we can have more like oliver twist which could do more we could do more and it's changes have to work this is the bane of our society the institutions must work and the current president is an m.p. told me of. what should be in nigeria when he needs people of like mind to work with all this so the appointment of people in 2 places was to be looked up on you must not do it because of you know certain varies. maybe oligarchies or. religion or tribal whatever you must do it or merits you must put the right people in that i believe otherwise things will never work you know

our diversity we should take advantage of that much now in terms of the impact of agriculture in nigeria it looks like agriculture in this country despite the involvement of half the population in this sector is not as productive when compared to states like countries like the united states where hundreds of billions of dollars is being contributed by the agriculture sector to the american economy for example but here in nigeria and as in many other african countries the opposite is you're saying why is this so many reasons 150 years ago agriculture was the same here in the united states but what do you know this mechanization know there's a lot of research. so so and the yield is higher so the population of farmers in the united states is now barely 2 percent because of the conditions and

replacement of human labor with. much in labor and then a lot of where there is as such findings are being put in place so productivity is high at a very full agriculture isn't the contributions of g.d.p. in nigeria even when we used to be crude was on we had lived on agriculture there is no reason why we shouldn't. do that again and this is why we are here today we are trying to restore the dignity of agriculture and nigeria is going to do it sounds to the focus of this administration what do we need this policy to continue you know we don't want to hug breaks in the policies because it is a change in government it was to do that in africa you will get that it takes time . in europe i mean in the u.k. forrestal we used to go there every hour for the role of little in england the population of dramas about 30 percent interest about 3 percent what they could be

as high as we have today so this is what you broderick and we hope that things will get there what do we need for cause we need a reappraisal with nearly all tradition and we need to recognize and to recognize we do not have to import wolseley what is available abroad we must use i was our technology integration center to repair what was going back and revise and build sutton's is a plan that will improve our agriculture look at brazil here were told russell was a proud world country what other cultures will be something else because they're looking inwards and they're producing a lot and they're now is what we thank you so much thank you very much. and that is our show for this week get in touch with us by tweeting me falling back a g.e. and to use the hash tag 80 feet and see when you do or drop us an e-mail counting the cost at al-jazeera dot net is. there is more for you online at al-jazeera dot com fast e.t.c that will take you straight to our page which has entire episode for

you to watch and to catch up on as it for this edition of counting the cost some 20 back to go from the home team thank you for joining us the news on al-jazeera. the river narin flows through the coldest reaches of kyrgyzstan temperatures here could drop to 20 degrees below 0 this time of year with the driving snow and bitter winter conditions on enough to keep these men from working on the ice and in the freezing water because the river nari contains gold men from villages along the

river been panning for gold a nice area for centuries the best time of year to do it is the winter because the river is lower than your in the summer months these tiny little yellow flanks you can see them on don't look much they were around $50.00 a gram. i really didn't bad things would i be able to forgive somebody like me a convicted war criminal seeks out the survivors of a prison camp to apologize for the crimes of his past i just can't get even better i showing. the unforgiven a weakness documentary on al-jazeera my old team ask them. to not let me sleep. child joy bringing my neighbors my neighbor's children so they can see and get more comfortable 5 years children are at the heart of america's love affair with weapons of their osama makes the report there for a new machine and it's fun but

a new generation is fighting fire with a recently are fighting for voices to be heard because we don't want to see and hear disputing get heard. never again part of the radicalized youth series on algis . u.s. pharmaceutical company but the other claims that it skirted 19 vaccine is effective against the u.k. and south african variants of the virus but the data is only for the. hello i'm adrian for the get this is al jazeera.