that law was imposed by beijing on july 1st it's very draconian and it seem to have many moving goalposts so lawyers here and prosecutor tear are still said to be finding their way and this particular case is said to be able to define certain parameters for our parts national security law as more and more cases are expected to be brought to prosecution in the future. as there have been so robin a reminder of our top stories mere bars military has seized power about the removal of $24.00 ministers from their posts and installed its own cabinet civilian leader and son suchi and other officials have been detained the military has alleged voter fraud in the various poll but has promised to hold elections after a year. and suzuki's party is urging people to reject the coup and to protest the

heavy military presence in major streets around the b. and bar the capital of be about communication lines have been disrupted following the military's takeover and the fall is one of the few western journalists to be based in nearby she says the military already has power in the country and that's why people are skeptical that the coup would happen. under this current constitution the military as it was designed the military very comfortable and this was a constitution written by the military it was written by the former military government and they spent years writing it then years implementing it and so i think what is quite important to remember is that the military has never been keen to get rid of the constitution but what we heard last week was on wednesday the minimum length said that at some point if the constitution wasn't being followed that it should be abolished there's been widespread international condemnation of the coup the un is calling it a serious blow to democratic reforms while the european union is calling for the

outcome of recent elections to be respected. in other news a plane carrying south africa's 1st water 1000000 crowed a virus vaccine doses from astra zeneca has arrived in johannesburg the country is battling a 2nd wave of infections driven by a more contagious variant 1st identified there there's been concern over the effectiveness of scenes against the mutation south africa is the worst hit country on the continent with almost one and a half 1000000 cases and more than 44000 deaths drugmaker pfizer has pledged to the additional $75000000.00 vaccines to the european union for the 2nd quarter and that brings the total above doses for the block to this year to 600000000 this year the aim is to vaccinate 70 percent of adults in the e.u. by the end of the summer the e.u. has vaccine rollout has been slower that hoped those were the headlines are back with more news a half hour here on out of there next it's cutting the cost fish stay with us.

this is counting the cost on al-jazeera your look at the world of business and economics this week the world's richest man protest to reform the institution highlands king receives a huge payout but how much is he worth with global oil demand looking bleak what are the prospects for opac. 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 in thailand 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 former 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 while 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 the 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 grew 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 moloch defamation laws now the serious scot hyla reports from bangkok. he's one of the most vocal critics of the thai establishment now protesting the pret 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 anti-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 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 c bar one tonic it has taken it upon herself to patrol the internet she says this week's 43 year less majesty sends was fair and hopes her work will lead to others being sent to prison can't help it 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 a ton 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 'd and more aggressive measures to try to sway audience voices it will all be made worse this situation it won't be political tensions from bad to worse make the situation

baumol paula high it is as high authorities are building up a new richie of repression. and the potential for volatility will increase over the next few weeks as recently imposed over 1000 restrictions are relaxed bringing the protesters back to the streets. let's get some detail then our sense of what's behind the protests then joining me from bangkok is chris baker 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 fire 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 come because this figure has never been made. and you know he said. what we know he had promised me mostly about 100 years ago. and it has passed one part of the investment. in the uncommercial bank.

and then we know that. for the other part it's based on land and this is land in the center bank called save lives pass with the sense of bangkok but also in several other towns and cities throughout thailand and we know for instance that the number of rental contracts on this land to start very large and now some time ago historians who knew where this land was in the past put back together with modern family and i saw results of that came up with the estimate that the king in 2005 was worth about 41000000000 u.s. dollars right now and then i don't know how you value things on what you count account in your calculations right yes so and that's right the 2 things that are set of how much land there is and what we what he could calculate was how much there was about 80 or 90 years ago and then what he used was the most in reference

land values for land sales now when this estimate came out. the crown property bureau said that's not really very fat because a lot of our land is rented out to move on. so there was some sort of adjustment made in some of the estimates to take account of that fact but crop and he actually discussed the with the company they wouldn't confirm anything but he came up with to find you a 44th around $41000000000.00 u.s. dollars now since then land prices gone up quite a lot so conservatively now i think a good estimate would be about $70000000000.00 u.s. dollars tobacco tax 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. they need to march abroad for a tear. since in the last 15 years it seemed quite amazing they had 2 minutes 3 to reply we 2 elections over 3 prime ministers so now the republican party dissolved and i took a cypher driven into exile or rock ducting they like me some of them probably also who killed so then surely you know the world has friends and people started to object and the demands of the student movement became a lot it was clear from one 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 monitors all right what actually all the dim alms 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 powerful 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 the 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 no this wealth belongs to the country and it's held in trust and to minister by the ministry of finance but then 27 c. in the secret session of the parliament the bill was passed to transfer this wealth into the king's personal name and another act next year slightly modified that and

i think that is the origin of some of this concern the king did offer. this truck only and defamation law to be relaxed why is it now being reinforced and with some vigor one has to say you know even with films of the royalists group 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 have been doing very well in the pandemic era has it you know i mean tourism has become if not if not totally dependent on tourism but difficult to source of growth and back in 29 scenes there are 48000000 visitors to thailand for christmas and and at that time it was estimated the consequence is maybe 12 to 15 percent of the economy the placement 2 or 3000000 people now since locked down in april may or may you are here that's not the any arrivals a tall a supposedly a country the only way you can get in who have to tell you. that not many tourists coming that way so that part of the economy who kicked the can down and it's

not so common you know because the. while we think of airlines and big hotel probably. a lot of the people who are. in the small business you know that travel into restaurants or bars or whatever. we already know large numbers that. come bankrupt and many up of said hanaud much longer very unlike this tour don't come with i think maybe like who are we. and so that needs some 2 to 3000000 people who lost their lives completely and this is nothing to do with protests in. 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 loss 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 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 what usually 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 amc 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 or else 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 still backs the southern transitional council and claims to have trained thousands of local fighters. and despite misgivings and a saudi led push to reestablish ties with qatar of a dobie signed up to restore full diplomatic relations some 3 years after imposing a blockade the u.a.e. president was in self missing sending along the vice president mohammed bin rashid al maktoum well joining me now from london is the man nasri a man 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 then 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 barrels per 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 on wayne ok production costs if they continue to meet 18 as the baseline if she looking at the crude oil balances we don't see coal and will 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 their way into twenty's. if they want to just hang on as if they all demand is not going back anytime soon or in the media future will the u.a.e. get its why if this is indeed as you suggest just a boggling 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 coach are 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 the explosion 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 especially new oil fields and you can't really utilize them fully. yes actually it is one of the main concern is to basically use these resources before 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 acid it will also decline unless there is a policeman in the market such as 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 opec 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 quote about

represents a restriction on how much some of these opec members can raise their production if they still in opec well the. kowtows are in place to control supply and avoid oversupply the market and avoid prices collapse and remember all pick works when the market is into her surplus and prices are low opaque he's 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 increases to control the money 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 published that scenario last year based on forecasts for political environmental reasons for their shareholders and companies investments on can't be justified. we've also got this concern though the us president appears to be calling time on the at least the us or oil industry cutting subsidies poising 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 us oil back to the market easier if it where no such basically breaks 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 freight donia. during the normal harvest season the steep mountains of the santa isabel farm would be alive with coffee pickers. 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. i don't know which was when 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 or venezuelan migrants like the genius who took a chance here after losing her job in the coastal city of qatar hana. 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 in qatar hina obviously i'm worried about getting the virus especially since i'm undocumented and contraceptive care. workers and prevent outbreaks farms of 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 and the coffee trading market in switzerland where a few major companies like starbucks and this by most coffee in the world keeping prices low thanks 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 for you online account to 0 dot com slash c t c that'll take you straight to our page which has the entire episode to catch up

on. for this edition of counting the cost time sammy's a than from the whole thanks for joining us the news that al-jazeera is next. al jazeera is investigative unit goes undercover tracking down an international organized crime network. i want to. go back to exposing direct links to corruption at the highest level of the bangladesh government. the fact that.

al-jazeera investigations all the prime minister's men. understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the board timely taking will bring you the news and current affairs that matter to you. as military seizes power in a coup or declares a state of emergency for one year a blames the government knowing claims of election fraud. the whole robin watching al-jazeera life my headquarters in doha also coming up the country's lay down son suchi is detained her party as a people to reject the coup and protest also south africa receives its.