millions during the lockdowns of the past year cinemas journey away from fear and into the home began a long time ago going to the movies in the company of strangers make it more appealing again once the pandemic finally ends paul reese al-jazeera come there where sweden. again i'm fully battle with the headlines on al-jazeera the world health organization is calling on governments to pause their coronavirus vaccine rollouts once essential workers and vulnerable people receive their jobs the organization is concerned that rich nations will stop by surprise causing others to miss out peru is beginning a strict lockdown for the 2nd time in 10 months east fresh on its overwhelmed hospitals a shortage of medical oxygen is forcing people to look for it on the black market the lockdown will last until mid february has more on the plants. it's going to

be very difficult they've had lock downs before very tight lock downs this one will affect about half the country's $32000000.00 population including the capital leiber and the surrounding areas it's only going to go to people to stay at home if they can only essential business is the trouble with something like 70 percent of the population of the workforce work in the informal economy if they do work lee simply don't have enough money to feed their families so they resisted previous lockdowns they're likely to resist this one. russian police have one people not to take on a nationwide rallies on sunday in support of opposition leader alexina vonnie security forces have been setting up barriers in conducting exercises in cities where protests are planned thousands of demonstrators were arrested last week protesters angry over a fatal fire active ommaney in hospital calling for the president health minister and police chief to resign hundreds rallied outside the health ministry at least 5

people died in the blaze at the hospital in bucharest on friday u.s. media reporting that former president donald trump has parted ways with his lead impeachment lawyers just so week before his trial u.s. senators have already been sworn in as jurors trump is accused of inciting the seizure of the capitol hill building earlier this month his aides say they plan to argue the trial is unconstitutional because he is no longer in office. and more than 70 percent of hong kong 7 and a half 1000000 residents can now apply for a special the senate could pave the way for british citizenship the u.k. government introduced a scheme for holders of the british national overseas passport after beijing imposed a sweeping national security law in hong kong china says it will no longer recognize a passport as a valid travel document those are the headlines on al-jazeera have more use for you after counting the cost to stay with us.

we listen to the only music you hear is. the most beautiful music in the world the silence with. the stories the. 0. hello i'm sammy's a than this is counting the cost on al-jazeera your look at the world of business and economics this week the world's richest man or can protest to reform the institution hylands king receives a huge payout but how much is he worth with global oil demand looking bleak what are the prospects for opac will the u.a.e. be the next to exit the cartel. and is the cost of your coffee about to rise we'll

tell you why coffee farmers in colombia are struggling to recruit labor amid the pandemic. antigovernment protests kicked off entirely and last year after a pro-democracy party was disbanded for opposing the military government the protest escalated and morphed into demands for the monarchy itself to be reformed it's long been thought thailand's moment was the richest in the world. well the economy has contracted more than 6 percent due to the pandemic millions are unemployed and there's little prospect of a tourism revival well in the midst of all of that the king's recent decision to take control of his assets has struck a chord so how much is the king worth then. what year are long gone as wealth has been estimated to start at $30000000000.00 by business insider in 2018 his

thoughts on more than $6000.00 hectares of land around the country a biography about his father in 2011 estimated property holdings in bangkok alone were worth about $33000000000.00 well since the king took control of the crown property bureau in 2017 to $18.00 some 4 point $7000000000.00 and new developments have been announced on land it owns through the bureau the king is the biggest shareholder in the country's 2nd biggest bank cme commercial bank and i group a group c m cement together they're worth about $7300000000.00 after ascending to the throne the king received a net dividend of $1200000000.00 from the holdings according to calculations by bloomberg all right now a crackdown is under way as the thai government pursues anti establishment protesters on the country's draconian molokai defamation laws now the serious scot hyla reports from bangkok. he's one of the most vocal critics of the thai

establishment now protested penguin rock is facing the consequences in court he's accused of insulting the monarchy under this country's strict laws majesté laws and he's not the only one dozens of that a government demonstrators have been charged under this law in recent months. earlier this week a court handed down the longest prison sentence ever for less majesté 43 years to a woman in her sixty's proposed she made on social media 6 years ago. every time that this law is in force the monarchy loses its legitimacy it's uncivil to sentence to school and to 33 years it's a political move to threaten the us sorry to disappoint you but we're not afraid and i think i'll support us i'm not afraid i don't want to key is taking is on great putting shame on the south. the law also known as article 112 was sidelined for about 3 years on orders of king maha watch the wrong corner. but it's been

brought back since protesters started taking to the streets calling for the prime minister to resign a new constitution and reform within the powerful monarchy some thais agree with the law and say the monarchy needs to be protected. what is sun on sea by one tonic it has taken it upon herself to patrol the internet she says this week's 43 year less majesté sen's was fair and hopes her work will lead to others being sent to prison i think she got what she deserved this is a sensitive time because people don't want to defame the institution just once they do it on line they do it in person like when they shouted and threw objects at the royal medicaid the steep increase in 112 cases is seen by some here as a desperate move by the authorities whose previous tactics failed to stem the movement that's demanding reform and it could backfire by bringing more 'd and more aggressive measures to try. it will only make this

situation it will in the political tensions from bad to worse make this a days and mom all call it it is as the highest authorities are building up a new origi in all repression. and the potential for volatility will increase over the next few weeks as recently in pope. over 1000 restrictions are relaxed bringing the protesters back to the streets. let's get some detail the mouse's of what's behind the protest then joining me from bangkok is chris spanker chris taught asian history and politics at cambridge university with his wife he's written a number of books most recently a history of our youth via good to have you with us so we've gone through the estimates can we say with any certainty that what the king is actually worth you know we can't because this figure has never been made public and didn't you know he sets them around that difficult through what we know he had the property with

mostly acquired about a 100 years ago a century and it has parts one part of it is investment think companies and young commercial bankers and see and cement and we know that that stock market next but the other part it's based on land and this is land center bank cock a very large part of the central bangkok but also in several other pound city throughout thailand and we know for instance that the number of rental contract on this land. is very large and now some time ago historian who knew where this man was in the past put that together with modern value and as a result of that came up with the estimate that came in 2005 was worth about $41000000000.00 u.s. dollars now hands in its own on how you value things on what you count account in your calculations the right yes so and that is right the 2 things that how much

land there is and what we what he could calculate how much there was there about 80 or 90 years ago and then what he used with the modern reference. for land sales now when this estimate came out. the crown property bureau said that's not really very threat because a lot of our land is rented out. to move on. so there was some sort of adjustment made in some of the of the estimate to take account of that fact but procter and he actually discussed the with the company or they wouldn't confirm anything but he came up with to find you a 44th round $41000000000.00 u.s. dollars now since then man prices gone up quite a lot so conservatively now i think a good estimate would be about $70000000000.00 u.s. dollars back ok that's a lot of money given what you said and given what the average citizen is going through right now with the economy in the pandemic era should we be surprised by

the protests yes but remember these protests just about the king and they aren't just about the oil well. the march of 04 tearing through here in the last 16 years it seemed quite amazing they had 2 minutes 3 to 5 we 2 elections over 3 prime ministers so now free political parties themselves and i think they fight for driven into exile or rostock things they like and some of them probably also who killed so then surely you know the world has friends and people have started to object and the samantha student movement became a lot it was seriously wrong was to get rid of this man that he dominated government the 2nd was to change the constitution which this military government has put in place in order to ensure that it will stay in power for a long time and the 3rd was to reform the wanted all right what actually all the

dumond's of the protesters when it comes to how the king's wealth is held in administered well in the 10 points that were read out in august of last year there were 2 well now we are not one said revoke the crown property act of 2080 and make a clear distinction between the assets of the king under the control of the ministry of finance and his personal assets and the other one was reduce the amount of the national budget allocated to the king to be in line with the economic conditions of the country now the 1st one is the compensation. from 1930 until recently this wealth was managed by an institution called the crown which is inside the ministry of finance and whenever a journalist said the king is very rich the government will come out and say no this wealth belongs to the country and it's held in trust and the minister by the ministry of finance but then 27th in the secret session of parliament there was

a path to transfer this wealth into the king's personal name and another act next year slightly modified that and i think that the origins of some of this concern the king did ask for this truck only in defamation law to be relaxed why is it now being reinforced and with some vigor one has to say you know even within the royally screwed there are 2 views on this law one says it's absolutely necessary to protect the monarchy the other side says if we look at the experience of other monarchies particularly european monarchies in the late 19th century they got rid of the law because they concluded that actually it was counterproductive to make people feel worse because the money he rather says better and i think perhaps because of that way of thinking the prime minister came out and told us last june that the king had kindly asked for him not for this law not to be used now we see

that it's come back now almost 6. while one or 2 of the some a little bit longer ago almost all of these relate to the student protests last year and i we have to assume that it comes from that all right we've got to talk a little bit about the overall economy how is that doing we know it's dependent on tourism i haven't been doing very well in the pandemic era has it you know i mean tourism has become it's not it's not totally dependent on tourism but difficult it's source of growth and back in 29. teens there were 48000000 visitors. and and at that time it was estimated the country maybe 12 percent the economy meant to 3000000 people now it since locked down in april may and may last year that has not been any rivals the top potently steel country the only way

you can get in. it's not. coming that way so that part of the economy who gunned down and it's a comic you know because that while we think of an line 8 from big hotel probably thought push a lot of the people who are dependent on the small business you know that travel agents restaurants or bars or whatever to the nearest shop we already know large numbers of those small. but can't come bankrupt and many out of the said panel last much longer very unlike its tourism don't come with i think maybe like the who are we. and so that needs some 2 to 3000000 people who lost their livelihood completely miss is nothing to do with protests in the park tough times have been thanks so much chris baker ok thank you.

now from the outside it appears to be a real david versus goliath battle on one side wall street's big hitters on the other so-called retail investors all day traders and for now the retail investors are winning communicating online they've pushed up the stock of last making videogame retailer game stop about 700 percent this year but as you can imagine institutional investors are not happy al-jazeera is kristen salumi reports from new york. game stop a video game retailer was in trouble even before the coronavirus pandemic hit suffering hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and closing hundreds of brick and mortar stores as gamers increasingly made their purchases online but none of that has stopped its stock from skyrocketing in value spurred on by individual

investors posting on the reddit page wall street bets started by jamie rosen scale and what we're seeing here is the result of having a massive influx of retail traders who don't care about fundamentals never really have cared about fundamentals they cared about the short term moves so in theory in the short term anything is possible i mean the price is set based on supply and demand and at this point anyone who's just buying up the stocks is further putting pressure to raise the price institutional investors had bet against game stop shorting the stock to make a profit but read it investors rallied against them buying the stock on mass this increased the price and created a so-called short squeeze where hedge funds were forced by the rising stocks to avoid massive losses further pushing up game stop shares after losing hundreds of millions of dollars institutional investors like andrew left of citron research have admitted defeat and walked away analysts warn this is

a dangerous game the stock is pushed up and what you really it's a little like a ponzi scheme because if you're a last person old in those years under $60.00 a share you got up there on dollars and now it's trading at $88.00 well you just got stuck with the last part of the train you lost a lot of money game stop express and stanford statement but many day traders appear willing to take the risk now propping up other struggling companies like the m c theater chain and black berry threatening wall street institutions and prompting calls for reform of a market increasingly seen as out of touch with main street. now the pandemic has up ended many industries and none more so than the oil industry in fact oil giant b.p. went as far as saying all demand may never return to 2019 levels in other words the prophecy of peak oil finally come and gone is probably one of the reasons some

members of opec are getting a little antsy with president biden pushing a multi-trillion dollar effort to move to green technology oil shelf live is looking like it might be nearing an end or that probably explains rumbling rumors the u.s. may be planning to exit opec and with good reason the u.a.e. surprised many by saying it could pump up to 4000000 barrels of oil a day if need be that a 1000000 or more barrels than analysts thought it was capable of it's also discovering billions of barrels of new all all of which means it won't be able to commercialize the fields there are no doubts there will be an almighty scrap for customers once demand tightens and it's low cost producers like the u.a.e. and saudi arabia that will win market share a big spens of countries like algeria and nigeria so how real was the threat from abu dhabi to leave the cartel well it certainly hasn't shied away from

breaking with policy with saudi arabia last year it ended its 5 year military involvement in the saudi led war in yemen fighting has triggered what the united nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis it's still banks the southern transitional council it claims to have trained thousands of local fighters . and despite misgivings and a saudi led push to reestablish ties with qatar abu dhabi signed up to restore full diplomatic relations some 3 years after imposing a blockade the u.a.e. president was in south missing sending along the vice president mohammed bin rashid al maktoum well joining me now from london is the man nasseri eman is the managing director for the middle east with oil market consultancy firm facts global energy good to have you with us so we know of course carter left opec now there are rumblings that the u.a.e. might leave what can we read into all of this. well

a few points come to mind question 1st thing that has production and there was about the $1000000.00 spend they were less which is not comparable to those of us production at the point 5 to 4000000 bastard day but we don't think you know he was really considering leaving opec we think it was a. bargaining chip for their future production levels with the chances of you either leaving opec been 0 we think however he has some valid concerns about basically the potential life of these ongoing production costs if they continue to meet 18 as the baseline if she looking at the crude oil balances we don't see color pick going back to 2018 levels anytime soon perhaps not until age 2020 so if the u.a.e.

has plans and investments for increasing their production capacity and production levels that's not going to happen until way into 2 twenties. if they want to just hang on if they all demand is not going back any time soon in the media future will the u.a.e. get its why if this is indeed as you suggest just a bargaining tactic to get a bigger quota. i suppose they could continue to use this. basically consider as a threat if it can be counted as a threat and bargain against. asking for increasing cultural obviously there are many other factors at play. currently around $2.00 to $5000000.00 potentially i do maximum barrels per day of production from iran and venezuela out of 6 production and when that comes situation is going to be much worse and harder for the u.a.e. to get what they want what is behind all of these changes all these developments at

least in strategy is that a concern for having stranded assets having all these specially new oil fields and you can't really utilize them fully. oh yes actually it is one of the main concerns to basically use these resources before a data values starts to decline because as the oil demand growth or stops and basically the demand starts to decline and the value of the ass it will soon decline unless there is a policeman in the market so the less i want him out if that's the case then shouldn't everybody in the all game be worried about stranded assets and should we be saying maybe even others start thinking if not frightening about leaving out back well leaving opec is not going to help them what helps is try to increase their production as a little cost producer the likes of so d. and the u.a.e.

and kuwait all have plans to increase their production and use these resources before their value starts to decline so you need restrictions of quota represents a restriction on how much some of these opec members can raise their production if they still in opec well that the actions and kowtows are in place to control supply and oversupply to market and avoid prices to collapse and remember all pick works when the market is into her surplus and prices are low opaque he is there for about 20 times and we are in a very terrible time for the oil market but remember as time goes by and demand starts to decline it finally gets worse for the oil market and hence the need for opaque 'd increases to control the markets from going to oversupply and from seeing a loss of a pretend to any more often and support prices right at the levels of let's say

$50.00 or thereabouts all right i'm going to try and squeeze in quickly 2 questions briefly b.p. suggested that we may have already seen oil peak have weight. certainly not anything b.p. had to do that make that announcement and publish that scenario as their baseline forecast for political environmental reasons for their shareholders and companies investments and can't be justified. we've also got this concern though the u.s. president appears to be calling time on the at least the us or oil industry cutting subsidies poising or oil and gas leases what does this mean for the u.s. oil industry at least well i think what that means is slow down on the growth of u.s. production and lower levels of production in the longer term. making a return of those countries that the u.s. or put sanctions on such as iran and israel is oil back to the market easier if it

where no source basically breaks on on u.s. growth in production it would have been much harder for those sanctions barrels to come back to market demand it's been good traffic with the thanks so much thank you coffee farms across colombia are suffering the worst shortage of workers in the yes farms are missing up to half the temporary workers they regularly hire because of fears of covert 19 and low prices for beans alessandra m.p.'s he reports from frey donia. during a normal harvest season this steep mountains of the center isabelle farm would be alive with coffee makers. hard at work selecting the best beans of the country's famous wheat arabica but this season hiring the labor has become harder amid the falling prices in the 1000 pandemic. we went from 800 or 1000

workers to 400 and not all at the same time we've been dealing with a reduction for the last couple of years but the pandemic exacerbated it. for centuries colombia's coffee business depended on armies of seasonal workers picking the beans by hand it's physically demanding and less only a few months older workers can make up to $30.00 per day. but with the added risk of the pandemic the majority of workers this year more experienced older men are venezuelan migrants like a genius who took a chance here after losing her job in the coastal city of kut to hannah. it's been hard because i wasn't used to it but you adapt if you think about the family i have to take care of my mother and daughter and cutter hina obviously i'm worried about getting the virus especially since i'm undocumented and contraceptive care. to lure workers and prevent outbreaks farms have introduced bio security measures

like hand-washing stations and expanding dormitories to try to reduce the chances of contact but farmers say they're also facing competition from illegal coca farms that can pay workers more. as that and the fact that the picking culture is disappearing people don't want to do it anymore. but some coffee experts believe the solution to these problems lies far away from these fields in the coffee trading market in switzerland where a few major companies like starbucks and buy most coffee in the world keeping prices low tanks to their bargaining power a tilt to the international market the need to change the old ways in a deadly pandemic all point to a crisis brewing in colombia's coffee fields leaving farmers and workers at risk and that's our show for this week and there's more for you on line account and 0

dot com slash c t c that'll take you straight to our page which has the entire episode to catch up on. that's it for this edition of counting the cost i'm sam is a than from the whole team here thanks for joining us the news allowed is next. north korea isolated and heavily sanctioned yet earning billions around the globe there are $39.00 is involved in everything that makes money for those korea. to carry defy the cusswords take on tyson. the money this year and it goes straight into the coffers as a leadership a $2.00 part people in power investigation bureau $39.00 cash for came to. it's 10 years since revolutions across the arab world challenge the power. but how

did these leaders rise to their positions the principle of the before is dictation is to be patient they play their game very carefully and how did they stay in control of a common thing amongst the arabic states is is incredible will to survive the arab awakening absolute power. on a jersey. w.h.o. warns against a vaccine and nationalism amid fears wealthy countries are not acting fairly over supplies. though this is al jazeera live from doha for the battle also ahead lining up on the streets for oxygen perot's hospitals are overwhelmed as a country that has for another coronavirus knocked out. a businessman close of

a lot of airplay.