3 there were incidents like the bali bombings and the volcanic eruption that impacted tourism but it's worse now. he's determined to stop his business from closing down like many galleries have. they noticed that he took we will never shut down even if there are no customers i want the world to know that we're fighting so . even though he isn't making any sales he still orders new sculptures from local artists to keep the industry alive while they all wait for a better day just in washington al jazeera to counter. your jihad is there what we saw the reminder of our top stories me about has seen its worst violence since its military seized power and the 2 months ago local media reporting at least 50 people have been shot dead in the latest crackdown against anti cooper testers tell you chang has the latest from bangkok it's hard to get an

absolutely accurate idea of how many fatalities there have been today but we're getting reports from people who are collating what they're saying on social media that the number is over 50 at this stage and likely to be much higher we're also seeing a lot of images of people with terrible wounds a lot of them 2 bullet wounds to the head some still alive others clearly dead as the army has cracked down all over the country frankly with absolute force the violence coincides with a military parade in the capital where the leader of the ruling gender pledged to safeguard democracy forces a tribute to the army's resistance to japanese occupation during world war 2. the delivery of vaccines to developing countries through the u.n. backed kovacs scheme could be pushed back by weeks because of delays from a major indian producer it comes as india saw its highest number of new cases this

year iran's president hassan rouhani has criticized india for holding the delivery of the vaccines it was expecting a shipment of 375000 doses china's foreign minister is in tehran and is widely expected to sign a 25 year cooperation pact the deal is said to political economic and strategic components iran's economy has suffered from international sanctions after the u.s. withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal democrats and republicans are blaming each other for a surge of people crossing the u.s. border from mexico the number of arrivals has reached near record levels in recent weeks. a new attempt will be made to refloat the huge cargo vessel blocking egypt says canal the ships japanese owner says crews will try to take advantage of the high tide later on saturday those were the headlines and rob will be here with the al-jazeera news hour in half an hour to stay with us counting the cost is next.

it is only a change because some people believe in a purpose that is bigger than their. money to make a little mice in the state senate they put themselves to make the changes. should have taken this. long we have the disc culture to slosh and more to create new york areas we have to change this culture i am one of the fortunate ones in need and establish my love hard fight but all the people and on that majority this is legal of us are talking about just good hardworking people that want to live the american dream like our ancestors these are hindu refugees are terrified that they may be forced to return to myanmar.

by their own kimbell this is counting the cost on al-jazeera you look at the world of business and economics this week nationalism diplomacy and the rights to make sexy is a time for rich nations and drug makers to give developing countries the technology to speed up the rollout of vaccines. the road to a more healthy and productive country could be through improving mental wellbeing we find out why governments are not spending enough on mental health. and despite the pandemic the islamic finance industry grows at double digit rates so what's behind the rise of the practice live up to actual islamic principles. with the european union in the midst of a 3rd wave of the. covert pandemic brussels has been threatening to block the

export of vaccines ratcheting up the specter of vaccine nationalism it isn't alone the united states has refused to release 30000000 unused doses of the astra zeneca vaccine to aid the woeful rollout in europe and even india one of the most advanced vaccine production facilities is holding back supplies to vaccinate its 1000000000 plus population against this background south africa and india turn to the world trade organization to ask vaccine makers to give up their intellectual property rights so more that can be produced locally it's a proposal that washington london and brussels have roundly rejected the w t o believes the global economy would lose 9 trillion dollars of potential output if 4 countries were unable to get their populations vaccinated quickly vaccination is crucial to get the quarter of a 1000000000 people who lost their jobs during the pandemic back into work and without back the nations that could be more strains and variants so it would make

sense to share the underlying technology yet with all the posturing and promises of the quad that is the stranger india japan and the united states to deliver 1000000000 doses to asia that point happened until the end of 2022 so governments are keen to get their hands on supplies from other sources but washington under president trump was putting pressure on countries not to take vaccines from russia the sputnik job presents an opportunity for the kremlin which is taking full advantage of vaccine diplomacy to grow its influence in latin america to raise above reports from when a site is. a plane from argentina's national airline carrying thousands of doses of russia's sputnik v vaccine event was shown in most major television networks in the country mostly from the running of the restaurant was we have signed a contract with the russian federation what does that contract say what that contract says is that we will be able to have enough doses to vaccinate $10000000.00

argentinean's between january and february. even though that deadline has passed and $10000000.00 doses are yet to arrive in argentina russia has become a crucial vaccine supplier for latin america last year as developed nations close deals with large laboratories for vaccines countries in the region turn to russia through fear of being left behind martin you know what one of the 1st country in the region and that delegate. ran played it calvin document may have been. planted in order to get the vaccine up. but it made it on that information with other countries in latin america like mexico and bolivia at the beginning people here in argentina look at that button it could be back feed with our now they're waiting in line to get in all feeling that. bolivia was hard hit by the pandemic almost 12000 people lost their lives in what is considered one of the

region's poorest countries. in the country say russia sputnik of the vaccine was the only resource available. reality in the world has been always very very low most the companies are breeding the contacts they can or didn't deliver their promised so it would be very unlikely you'd believe everybody back for the vaccine the 1st top of the tank the intervention of our own president who has gone back the president by for this contract was achieved. russia was the 1st country to register a covert vaccine last year. and since then sputnik v. has become a diplomatic resource between moscow and latin america analysts here say it's part of a plan. the relationship with russia house would do with an objective of russia's foreign ministry with putin of projecting his presence in the region occupying areas where the united states is missing but also as

a veiled to compensate the presence of the us at the border with russia in ukraine the western presence in a way it means being in the united states backyard there's also the economic aspect local reports indicate moscow is already eyeing future contracts in argentina that include a nuclear power plant and a training vacuum want to an area that's believed to have some of the largest reserves of shale oil and gas in the world. but for now there is a pandemic and for many countries in the region the sputnik v. is the only chance to prevent further loss of life so what are other nations doing to get their hands on vaccines well in pakistan they're allowing private institutions to buy and sell that things to those that can afford it i'm blushing to say that dr omar talk director of operations at choctaw trees in the war is with me now thank you so much for joining us. so explain this to me pakistan needs the world health organization's help in order to vaccinate its population it's using

the kovacs scheme but your able to buy and sell these that seems privately how does that work bill to be clear the vast majority of people getting vaccinated baucus on are going to be vaccinated through the government lead the rollout which is going to be supplied by the pullbacks ability. to direct procurement by the government from various african producing nations but the sign up. in that context in baucus on significant john chunk of health care is delivered by the private sector and the government has been brought back about doubling the prices all along and taken the private sector as a part of the solution but it was wrapping up to think about for the last year and whether it is wrapping up the vaccine rollout this year so in that context the government allows 'd private sector companies important that the vaccine to focus on. to be clear the companies that are importing the vaccines box are the ones that

have been nominated by the various manufacturers of the vaccine that were in the authorization in buckets on so the importers will bring that into box on but they can only sell it in this in that the such as ours and various other hospitals which are plugged into the national database so that all people who get vaccinated but that they're getting they're acting at the public at the facility or private sector to be. their data accumulated in the national you know the sentiment and ok i understand that and i also understand it's a very big job i made was the population 220000000 people in pakistan i understand it's a big task but critics say that by allowing people to pay for their vaccines you're creating a system that is inherently unequal i would agree that no solution. in this crisis . but the proponents of the system say that if there are people who can pay for the

backseat and not just people who can pay for the backs of those people who can pay for the vaccine for other people for instance charitable organizations associations like fast buck bodies have been in contact with us but they want to subsidize a vaccine for them to be this allows them to pay to join the fray and help them be a part of. the government roll out is progressing smoothly at the 3rd base and the government is blowing in a step by snyder fascinated 'd. then the experience of the last 60 years of age but there are people who have underlying medical condition or 'd there are people who have a loved one who haven't left and they want to get back to that it even if they have to pay for it because of course it's a life changing life altering a life saving intervention in many cases and if there are ways that the vaccine can be made available which also in turn eases the burden on the public program then

that i think it can be a part of the solution so you have the permission to buy the sputnik that sane i believe that russia was selling that vaccine for about $10.00 to $2.00 doses so what are you going to charge for it what's the markup so i want to be very clear we are not importing any vaccine directly we are not even if you want to do week about importing directly the government has recognized the company nominated importers for office than for the various taxi the company that is importing the virus the sputnik vaccine is currently in negotiations 'd with the government above regarding pricing inbox we are ready as a vaccination and that we are involved in the last one operation under the nationalization database that we're ready to go. for that what they were frightened by the government and the vile and the vaccine importing companies even vaguely. embrace ok does pakistan have the ability to manufacture back scenes.

i think a lot has changed in the last one year one year ago boston didn't have the capacity to make even 50 each to fulfill its own needs but 6 months later buxton was exporting personal protective equipment similarly there are several large pharmaceutical companies in boston and for that matter the national institutes of health which is going to the forefront of this fight has been very involved in developing their own production capacity i hear that they're in talks with a couple of chinese companies try and import concentrated baskin and then at least start backing it and box on to ease the burden and then develop the basti to manufacture it in boston down the road because this. first of all the board vaccine demond is not going away in the next couple of months also because we need to prepare for the next pandemic so i think the government and the private the pharmaceutical there are getting ready to be ready for the next wave as of

now we we are dependent on imports but hopefully that will not be the case in a few months or at least most of the year as if i'm saying earlier on in the show you know several nations have gone to the well try to organization wanting to get access to the to the intellectual property in order to to make things that scenes within their own countries do you think that would help pakistan's situation absolutely and i think any time you can have intellectual property available for other there's to be a partner up and start manufacturing that will 'd definitely ease the transition from manufacturing other than medicine to manufacturing the vaccine we're all in it together the key thing again and again that we are the you know when it's a bundle everybody and that is very who gets the right now the senate when the vote thursday 'd and this is. by all accounts this is

a matter of the the variant that started in some. that's the penalty getting from. the gate and saw the wires dating unless it mutates it is a possibility why possibility but we have to get better by a big hit and the principal intervention by that is to get out if you think that they did this because it's possible or even if they do have to or want to pay for it hey thank you so much for your time doctor much anti their director of operations at trying to tighten the bar trees. thank you. now what makes us happy a job perhaps money and family and what happens when we lose a job we can't see our families like many of us are experiencing right now to varying degrees due to the pandemic missing out on what made us happy is led to a rise in depression mental health issues have hit the young and women the hardest but not just the preserve of rich nations globally almost 1000000000 people suffer

with a mental health disorder and more than 75 percent of people in low income countries don't receive treatment that's according to the world health organization countries spend on average only 2 percent of the health budgets on mental health and that's despite the fact that for every $1.00 invested in treatment for common mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety there's a return of $5.00 in improved health and productivity some of the numbers around suicides and substance abuse are just plain the alarming so is mental well being one of the most neglected aspects of health care or our next guest may have the answer dr allison chauffeur is the program manager for the world health organizations initiative for mental health she joins us via skype from iraq thank you for your time so why is mental health so neglected gee you know mental health has been neglected for decades and there's probably a multitude of reasons and we know that mental health care is

a lot of stigma and discrimination around it. and people often takes the mental health as true suffering as a health condition so a lot of people might actually prefer to fund or services that they might consider life saving but we're starting to get a picture now that mental health is also part of overall health it's a fundamental part of health and can be as lifesaving as other health interventions even just looking at the numbers for every $1.00 spent on mental health you get a 5 dollar return on productivity i mean that must be the easiest sell for governments who are concerned with the bottom line. sure the returns on investment are substantial and you know those statistics are actually based on just addressing issues of depression and anxiety little low in the multitude of other mental health conditions that affect people. and it seems it seems to be a growing area of interest particularly following quote that we have seen slow very

very slow increases in investment in mental health but it still remains one of the most underfunded areas of all health in the world g.d.p. gross domestic product is obviously one of the measures that governments base their success the trajectory on but perhaps are we missing something substantial here could we be measuring you know how well a nation is doing by its happiness by some sort of index to measure how happy we are as a population sure certainly that's a that's a right that some countries a travelling i can think of new zealand as well one example but the haps i wonder if another measure might actually be the productivity that we are losing because of untreated mental health conditions so when we talk about the petitional return on investment we say that you know for every $1.00 spent on tracing depression and anxiety and other disorders a $5.00 return on investment could actually be made through governments because

people will be more productive children and adolescents will stay in school longer and a lot more can actually go towards a national g.d.p. if population a healthy and that includes their fundamental mental health it was interesting you mention new zealand there and i guess that's an example of how it's not a straight line because even though they do care about how happy people are you see and still has one of the highest or traditionally one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world which brings me to my next point pen demick and mental health you know we've been so concerned with the. impact of not having production lines manufacturing up and running but there's an economic cost to isn't there to people's well being mental well being suffering official definitely you know we did a survey recently that actually revealed some 93 percent of countries have actually

halted or ahead adverse impacts on their mental health services so this means not only the people who have the conditions before the pandemic there will even be more people that are experiencing those conditions including adolescence as a consequence of lockdowns and other economic hardships so this is something that we that we especially need to start looking at and addressing further and well countries like new zealand are doing well in some respects they still have a long way to go and this is where we say all countries are still developing when it comes to mental health but the disparity is particularly challenging for low resource countries countries with low g.d.p. and low health budgets where even less than 2 percent of the health budget can actually be spent on mental health services so there is up to $1000000000.00 people in the world suffering from mental health conditions and there's an urgent need to actually start looking at better resources better workforces and alternatives to

traditional mental health care that we can try and use to reach more people who are suffering and just finally what are some simple techniques that people are perhaps there watching that they can employ to improve mental wellbeing certainly so a lot of it is about taking good care of their selves so it's about eating a healthy diet it's about getting regular exercise even if that means skipping rope in your lounge room it also means trying to keep the routine and we're strongly recommending to show that you might like to reduce and limit screen. time reduce and limit the whole substance use and if you're a person who has suffered with mental health conditions before try as much as you can to maintain your treatment and your resources to access support anything someone is feeling. someone is feeling that they may be suffering

a mental health condition for the 1st time it's really important to seek seek assistance and this means not just from professionals but also keeping keeping up with their regular social support their families or friends or colleagues and and that might be through telephone or spy up. whatever way that we can it might also mean reaching out to others such as your neighbors trying to maintain some kind of social connection no matter how they can how that happens and these we know are probably the best protective factors that we can have our own mental well being thank you very much for your time i have to leave it there dr allison schaefer there the program manager for the world health organizations initiative for mental health thank you now order to 3 decades ago vomit finance was pretty unremarkable a lot of deposit taking and lending to consumers but as the industry copies mae west and products don't have been raised about the credibility of some investments

with some going as far as to call them under islamic or despite that and the pandemic islamic fire that has grown at its fastest pace since the global financial crisis islamic finance assets rose 14 percent to $2.00 trillion $1.20 with almost $2000000000.00 followers the industry has huge potential according to refine it of islamic finance the industry is expected to grow to $3.00 trillion dollars by 2024. well let's get into what's driving interest in islamic finance with whom are sort of on the head of the advisory board of wired u.k. the most popular islamic finance at in the united states all right thank you very much for joining us so what is it that makes wired so popular in the u.s. i would say it's not just the us but actually globally now with our intent i mean this has made whole lot of investing easy and accessible to the average person whether you want to go in with a small amount of investment

a nominal amount are you $100.00 or you want to put in a larger amount and allowing the type of access that were before unavailable to the average person and knowing actually it's a company that has huge growth potential is that if van his base and this is what sets set it apart from others for our viewers who may not be familiar with islamic finance you mentioned khaled besting can you explain what you mean by that so essentially a lot investing means that we scream at how impossible activities from an islamic perspective so we can invest in our cold war not graffiti gambling as well as interest which is forbidden most people are familiar with that if they're familiar with that anything to do with interest base activity so i mean money from financial institutions it is not allowed so there's a green screen and there's also like a positive screen which we're going to see more and more of now where we're looking at companies who are actually doing some sort of social benefit they're not in debt

so these companies are well structured they have good management etc ok so it sounds like this is obviously investing on islamic principles but also sounds like a would be a pretty good option for people who just want to make ethical investments so so why wouldn't i go for something like that you told me there's no reason at all what you would absolutely spectacled these principles are actually from a from a sustainable investment perspective we always say look. take a long term view it's not about instant return people today are always looking at the the quick buck so to speak actually say look take a more mature measured approach and you'll find that these principles completely aligned that actually we have stewardship with the investments that we made so that they're not lost in the sustainable so for the average person they think actually i want to spend my money or invest my money in a more ethical way they has of course been some criticism primarily that things

like islamic mortgages and car loans that they're just too expensive why is that so you have to understand that the layers of islamic compliancy require this additional layers of checking that need to go on but they are becoming more and more competitive i know why for example is completely competitive in the pricing that it has with the with the open market but car financing and home financing this additional layer of compliance is what increases the cost also access to the quiddity you're competing with a conventional system where there is excess liquidity in the market and so it's not it's not a level playing field so to speak but things are moving in the right direction and now you'll find that the products are more more competitive malaysia for example the the amount of mortgage and the other mortgages that are better which are how are they competitively priced and if i'd just as many people from a non muslim background taking them as well as people from 8 muslim background

there are some products that have come in for criticism i'm thinking of e.t.f. 6 dange traded funds because they're not based on an asset like gold or property and there is you know the question of does that make it speculative therefore does that make it an islamic no absolutely not just because they don't go to a property doesn't make you an islamic actually if you look at exchange traded funds that there are underlying companies and products ultimately being invested in these are derivatives all on. options these are real companies and actually if you look at the spirit of islam it talks about money circulating in society money benefiting society as a whole then investing in companies is the way to go because these are companies that employ people you've been able to support society in a bigger way you're producing some whole service or benefit to society versus purely holding gold or properties as assets within yourself you would consider that . as part of a investment strategy certainly you say have some gold or property etc but it's

much more beneficial to invest in companies that provide this benefit and provide services and are actually appoint people your benefits so many more people and it's much more aligned to the mccarthy the principles of the spirit of the shari'a so to speak all right thank you so much for your time we have to leave it there so demand the head of the advisory board for head u.k. thank you very much. and that's our show for this week and there's more for you online and out there adult onset of sequencing that will take you straight to. my episodes to catch up on. this edition of counting the cost of the now from our team here thanks for joining us on news on al-jazeera. it's a very bleak picture for a lot of americans out there white supremacy impacts all of our teachings you're putting more money into the hands of some workers taking money out of the hands of

other workers everyone goes to their camp it becomes us versus them this is the deal about constraining your nuclear program the bottom line of the big questions on out is they are. this is al jazeera. hello i'm about this and this is the news our live from doha coming up in the next 60 minutes. reports of at least 50 people shot dead in me and on the same day its military leader vows to safeguard democracy. india suspends the export of its covert 19 vaccines as a.