the 1st ever created of its kind. and also. listening to dr october and. the plans. to help lead the world the last fassel stranded by the grounding of a container ship in the suez canal have passed through the waterway more than 420 vessels were delayed when the ever given got stuck for nearly a week it blocked one of the world's most final waterway it's. just time for a quick check of the headlines here in al-jazeera and the former crown prince of jordan says he's under house arrest in amman but the military denies prince hamza has been detained official news agency says 2 former senior officials and other suspects have been arrested for security reasons. there is no outside agenda there is nothing on my part to affect the country or outside plotting from

behind the scenes listen to these accusations over and over again this is only in order to make a smokescreen over the retreat and retraction that we witnessed in the country every day in our beloved country we hope that the country moves forward and may god protect our dear george. lockdowns have come into place across parts of europe to combat surging coronavirus numbers france will shut schools and non-essential shops for 4 weeks while italy is locking down for the easter holiday. a number of corona virus infections in latin america has passed 25000000 brazil remains the hardest hit country while a spike in new infections in bolivia and chile has prompted both countries to close their borders the head of the roman catholic church has his followers not to lose hope during the coronavirus pandemic pope francis delivered the message during a scaled back east vigil service and since peter's basilica about 200 people were allowed to attend and all had to wear masks. police in somalia's capital of

mogadishu say a suicide attack on a busy cafes killed at least 6 people including the bomb follows separate attacks early on saturday on 2 military bases outside the city the military says it successfully pushed back al-shabaab killing 76 fighters at least 5 more people have been killed in memory the latest crackdown on demonstrators on saturday 10 ethnic groups announce their support for the protest movement. prosecutors in taiwan are seeking an arrest warrant for a construction site manager whose truck caused a devastating train crash 51 people died but that number could rise as crews searched the wreckage it's believed the truck rolled onto the track because it's brake was not properly engaged. all right you have state headlines more news here in al-jazeera right after counting the cost by fire. we understand the

differences in similarities of cultures across the our. current affair. hello i'm sammy's a band this is counting the cost on al-jazeera your look at the world of business and economics this week have the bankers finally had enough of brazil's president also narrows handling of the pandemic cripples the economic recovery. how the world plans to use financial instruments to reduce carbon emissions. and have batteries for world travel europe's auto industry attempt to stay relevant.

as the death toll from the pandemic inch towards $300000.00 present job also narrow told brazilians to stop whining and move on his tone towards the pandemic has been dismissive since the outbreak with brazil recording the 2nd highest death toll after the united states over the populist and with criticism of bankers and billionaires ringing in his ears also narrow appeared to be more conciliatory pledging to speed up vaccinations or a tall order for a country that has failed to buy vaccines in significant numbers criticized supply china and is only managed to vaccinate 6 percent of the population with the health system a breaking point and on its 4th health ministers since the crisis began the prognosis for the economy looks bleak. brazil's economy has contracted 4 point one percent in 2020 the most since $990.00 in the final 3 months of 2020 the

economy grew though 3.2 percent that was thanks to a $56000000000.00 cash transfer to millions of poor families that sent debt hurtling towards 90 percent of g.d.p. though and that only looks likely to rise having failed to prepare for the 2nd wave it's paying out billions more the currency near record lows last month that sent inflation to a 4 year high the central bank has been forced to raise interest rates to 2.75 percent from 2 percent. economists predict interest rates may rise rapidly to 5 percent by the end of this year with the economy predicted to underperform ex-president of the silver cleared of corruption also now rosana a lot of pressure is more ministers quit or are fired on the care of reports from rio de janeiro. is brazil school the death toll keeps growing women across

brazil have joined hands twin broidery their grief and the names of all those who died from corbett 19 this bright note in those matters remember this panel has 2 and a half metres per presents only 0 point one percent of the number of victims we would need $1000.00 panels like this one for all the victims that's another 2 and a half kilometers of. pressure against presidential aide will so narrow has been mounting as infections and death continue to spiral out of control brazil's bar association has asked the attorney general to charge president. with criminally mishandling the pandemic $500.00 bankers economists and business men wrote a letter asking the government to stop boycotting measures aimed at controlling the new wave of infections and to start heaving to the advice of doctors and scientists . also never went on television to say he was in favor of the vaccines he had

criticised in the past and was slow to start fine rob brazil his words were greeted with hot banging protests with next year's presidential election in mind also narrow met wednesday with representatives from congress in the supreme court one year after couvade 19 struck brazil the government has finally announced a committee to deal with the pandemic on a national level. meanwhile in this square 19 year old in weezer castro embroidered the names of her daughter in law and a friend she says she can deal with the sorrow but not with the anguish of watching nothing being done. to fix it everybody is silent was president j. boss and scorns the virus the masks and the vaccine even the church which threw up against of the day the ship is holding its tongue i'm feeling very anguished knowing i have nobody to turn to she decided to write

a letter to the pope but while waiting for an answer to her prayers in luisa and her friends will continue using their needle and thread to keep alive the memory of brazil's 300000 dead monica inaccurate i'll just sirrah we are designer. so balsa naro facing possible criminal charges for his handling of the crisis let's get some analysis now with jaya lugo cando director of executive and graduate education at northwestern university in cars have good to have you with us so is this basically 1st of all a situation where we see the president the government changing its sort of nonchalant approach to the pandemic in the health crisis because of pressure from the business community yes there is fundamental changes in the in the elise in the way that the government of brazil. is handling this situation but how wanting to mean that the value of the changing not because of what the actual health crisis is

shaping up to be but because of pressure from money well you know it's not right wing government after all it does have a constituency in the big business corporations and also also the right and that's what they you know that's their constituencies. and until now they concede at the beginning of the crisis was more concerned with the economy keep going down with the and then it could shelf and now has to change and therefore the government also just changes its approach so the change indicates no doubt some damage serious damage is going on to the economy can you estimate that for us well actually i mean obviously the pandemic has a huge impact particularly among the poorest and according to all the international organizations that money to her poverty inequality in brazil there's been a huge setback for very vulnerable segments of the public how the economy as such

has surprisingly show itself much more resilient i mean in the last quarter of last year and this by some very negative predictions the economy actually bonds back and it's still growing and started to grow. the last quarter that we account for in brazil is $3.00 in growth and that's after a huge fall last year but still and one of the main difference that the government of also not one has made is that it injected a lot of cash into the economy through cash handouts to the poor is a 56 this 1000000000 is basically what's kept growth going the 36000000000 handed to the poorest families right absolutely absolutely but we have to be very clear in this because it's it's we need to pass judgment in this in a way that really reflects what's happening don't remember that exports and imports in brazil i mean foreign trade only accounts for less than 30 percent of their

whole g.d.p. most of the d.p. is produced within the economy of the country so by injecting money into the economy what pulls or not isn't a station has managed to do is to reactivate the economy in the worst p.d. the possible now if you compare that to for example mexico that did not do that and saw its g.d.p. shrunk even further than brazil then you can see that at least that in that type of policy also not one has got it right i mean as many of you know he hasn't tossed to the poorest right you can say for whatever one would criticism criticize him for for his approach nonchalant approach the plan that he has. absolutely i'm not going to judge his intention i don't know that you know we are going to do it she doesn't want to judge what he actually did which is to inject money into the hands of the poorest is you know this is something that they let propose in the united states in europe through the. you know get me corman propose exactly this type of policy 2

years ago and this is now being done by a right wing president not bill's not a strange character he doesn't really fit into this i think of he's very right wing in terms of values and joseph approach it defeats clothes and as the military but in terms of economy he's shown to be a very pragmatic guy more against in the approach to the economy and you know we see our growth in the industry there's you know over 200000 new employments been created in brazil in this year which is amazing considering how bad the situation over it was managed in how how hard was brazil hit by this but we have actually net growth in the employment exports are also in certain areas and going off but no end and that is a good sign but also not all still faces the biggest challenge of all which is the

debt this service of the debt which now is almost 91 percent of the u.p. which is very worrying for maint many analysts and this is something that he inherited from he's put this answers but he has not fixed that problem actually has gotten much worse since you mentioned the debt let me jump in here is to ask the question will international investors maintain an appetite to hold on to that as long as both are now as in power and as you said we've called it at 90 percent of g.d.p. yeah i mean they get this is a program the for all the 4 rules and not all or for anybody who is in power in the next few years but a seal has accumulated. amount of bull in my opinion. and that's something that he had some this dead response of very structural issues. and also when you say there unmanageable what does that mean for the 20 percent of that that needs refinancing this year well that that he will have to make

a really strong hard case to the to dep't artist who will keep at least the current ratings of the country to keep the interest rate on the elisa has he made that case do you think i i mean he's in the economy again is is recovering he's growing the team he has in place it seems to know what they're doing and all this sign and is that but it doesn't only depend on him the political the polls in this are this shows that he's popularity is it decline and that the party you know of the last hour or 2 the 2 candidates would win an election to the 8 if the election were today don't mention will team that you mentioned their defense minister was 53 armed forces chiefs of resigned foreign minister resigned i mean when you talk about the team is the team ready there how crippling is this football sinatra politically as well as i cannot think of them pursers care about the economic team

and that it continues to be in place that have not been so far he's so far been careful not to meddle in that area and he's apparently listening there same it's been an absolutely fascinating chant thank you so much thank you. vaccines provide a route out of the pandemic governments are keen to bankroll the recovery through green sustainable eco bonds these greener bonds accomplish a number of goals from supporting new jobs to cutting emissions last year governments and businesses raise $490000000000.00 from green social and sustainable bonds that's going to rise to 650000000000 this year now that sounds like a lot of money but it's a drop in the ocean when you consider the bond market is worth $260.00 trillion dollars as the world transitions to net 0 carbon emissions 20 trillion dollars in

assets like oil energy and mining could become worthless that poses a huge financial risk for the global economy at the same time environmentalist say central banks should stop buying bonds of polluters the european central bank has hovered up 20 percent of green debt as part of its bond buying program now governments are also considering a new mechanism for rewilding with nature bonds failed enable governments to restore vast tracts of land back to nature they could be useful for projects like this argentina's iberia wetlands are one of the most biodiverse regions in the world but they've been severely impacted by industrial farming conservation groups are now working to reverse that damage to raise about reports from my beer a national park in korean to us. here it means in the local indigenous what any language water the chinese and here in the province of cory in

this in northeastern argentina there is splendid of it but in the past few decades the wild life in the event a national park that covers more than a 1000000 hectares of land began disappearing because of human activity. and that's what people like my long trying to change all of us have a condo unit that i mean that we are working to do you wild argentina this means to be introducing crucial species that disappeared from the ecosystem and in this case we are working with the jaguars the main objective is to generate a sustainable population. these jaguars now will and i.c.'s are kept here so their cubs can one day repopulate the area jaguars are seen as a threat to agricultural settlements in the area and that's why their numbers have plummeted in the past years in fact in the province of korea because they have been

extend for over 70 years now and that's why projects like this one are crucial to reintroduce this kind of species into the eco system because of a little but there are 7 other jaguars who have almost no contact with the humans and i ready to be released they are kept in 30 hector corel's it's extremely difficult to see them but using our stay one of them might be what needed a g.p.s. collar changed. he's. going to be said free this is likely the last contact we will have with her so we are digging all the possible samples that she's and then bio meant in the area. the project is part of rewilding argentina more than 20 years ago american philanthropist douglas tomkins and his wife kristen began buying up land in argentina and chile to

protected and then donated to a national park 3rd world in argentina has now given thousands of hectares of land to at least 6 national parks and would rather not have beena. it's very strange in argentina that a private owner donates to the state but when we do it all the prejudices scramble we start to see the projects because the animals start to appear like the giant and teeter the pompous deer the tourists start to come and the communities get involved this is a model of producing nature because it leaves resources to communities it's an economic alternative. argentina has tough economic problems to deal with and that's not being helped by the coronavirus pandemic which is why preserving nature is a major challenge but it's not just about protecting the wildlife it's the wildlife that would generate alternative work opportunities that could convince locals to

protect their natural wealth they already have. already in this argentina. and joining me now from london via skype is professor nick robins neck is professor in practice of sustainable finance at the london school of economics grantham research institute on climate change and the environment good to have you with us so we hear a lot about how that 0 is going to lead to a lot of job creation are those predictions accurate i think that's right i mean that the shift in those areas are seen sensual from a climate perspective but also it is a huge driver of economic opportunity the estimates suggest there are about 60000000 people for example in the energy sector in the moment in a sort of net 0 scenario this could rise to about 100000000 582050 this is about 15 percent more than these are current high carbon models so yes a shift to net 0 is going to lead to more jobs the crucial is your proceeds to sure

that these are good jobs as well but these are good jobs with good conditions and so on and i think a big priority that we see in the new plans to climate plans from u.s. president biden right center bankers such as christine lagarde head of the c.v.s. saying they're putting green concerns at the top of the agenda how quick are slow central banks to respond well i think it's really one of the most remarkable shifts in the financial sense system the what was central banks are doing if we look back to 5 years ago when the paris agreement of climate was signed hardly any central banks are really considering climate change is a key factor in terms of financial stability risk we now have nearly 90 central banks and supervisors who are signed up to the network for greening the financial system this includes the people's bank of china includes the bank of england the bond of france the central banks of brazil's in the pool and of course now the u.s. u.s. fed and all of them are saying tackling the risks of climate change is at the core

of our mandates and our mandates to look after and make sure that the financial system it is is secure and safe and sound. so that is a that is a remarkable shift and what we're seeing i think is we're perhaps entering a new phase we've discussed sort of net 0 already but i think we're seeing the the need for central banks to really make a more explicit a commitment to how they're going to support the financial system to achieve net 0 so the 1st reason is obviously and that's their economies going to be much the best outcome for central banks as they try and deliver financial stability cool cool goals would have less destruction in terms of climate shocks and so on but the 2nd is many many central banks also have a sort of secondary mandate to support the economic policies of their governments and now that we have over $120.00 governments with nets there are plans if follows the central bank should be thinking about how they can compliment the activities of

governments in the work that they are steering and supervising the financial system and we're seeing really some of the 1st signs of this sort of net 0 central banking starting to come through in the last few months so it sounds like listening to what you're saying that there really is a chance of a new phase as you put it or a new era does there have serious risks of stranded assets though as we move towards that 0 what consent for banks do to protect sort of financial stability. well i think i think that's right i mean think since in the last decade the organization contract a sort of ready to put the stranded assets on the agenda as we go through most any transition and this is a climate driven transition assets that we previously thought were valuable no longer become valuable and as we've seen through cultivated in many sense the credit crisis has accelerated some of the trends we've see 70 to friends towards electric vehicles to transport renewables and also the recognition that the clean

economy is really one of the great opportunities as we come out of this crisis so yes social banks and supervisors many of them are now actually introduce him stress tests for the companies that they regulate in the systems they they have a c. and that's important to really get information about how banks and insurers and pension funds oppositions in alternative scenarios in terms of scenarios of a destructive transition in terms of ones where we have unmitigated climate change huge amounts of physical shocks so this is really important and and this is also being being being awful by by by investors i think a complement of that is also for central banks and supervisors. to really follow up from these stress tests to require the financial institutions they regulate to introduce net 0 transition plans is one thing to assess the risk then you actually need to take action on the basis of this so i think we're again seeing increasing

interest in actually the role of central banks and supervisors requiring the banks and investor investment and sushi's they regulate to come forward with these net 0 transition plans not least to ensure that we have consistency and credibility in these plans across the markets i think there are a beginnings of fears that maybe a risk of green washing in some of these a net 0 statements that are being made because it's been great healthy thanks so much for your thoughts. well thank you so much and demand for electric vehicles is booming worldwide with governments in europe making plans to phase out fuel burning cars but the continent risks falling behind in the race to build the vehicles if the allows asia to dominate the battery development sector paul reste reports from govern bergen sweden. further faster cheaper and greener demand for electric cars is rising and so are the demands placed on the

the swedish chinese pollstar to is one of the latest vehicles trying to tempt drivers away from petrol diesel why is this a psychic term for the electric cars because it's finally happening because finally not nice anymore but other aspects whole can you still at all think that the combustion engine oriented car is a future proof business pole star is a joint european asian vehicle made by volvo and their chinese owners but the emerging electric industry is about intense intercontinental competition as well as collaboration. cars like this are developing extremely rapidly as engineers try to match the speed and range of petrol driven very coals and whoever makes the biggest leap forward now is likely to win the race to dominate the transport industry of the future. in europe without races being run from here the laboratory in uppsala north of stockholm because when it comes to electric cars the advantage is

all about the battery like this the lab is the standard bearer for the battery 2030 plus project the consonance bit to take back some of asia's dominance the development and sale of electric batteries the europe wide group is led by chemistry professor christina edstrom we need to be finding a new materials and new back to calls to. europe in the hard competition malaysia they're good in asia they're doing new exciting packages if we want to have industry in europe we need to catch up. there's a lot of catching up to do you factories for the current generation of lithium ion batteries are being built in sweden and germany but europe makes just 3 percent of car batteries globally while asia led by china japan and south korea produces 85 percent to change that europe needs to find a battery that provides greater mileage charges faster and relies less on the

damaging effect of mining from mineral such as cobalt the problem with the fact is today they don't hold enough energy in their container we want to make it back to something future and we need to understand what's going on really the fundamental to mystic level that could be the ace up europe sleeve the world's most powerful neutron source a kind of x. ray for atoms is also nearing completion in sweden in time to join the hunt for a new car battery a breakthrough will be needed to stop asia putting the rest of the world in its rear view mirror for good paul aris al-jazeera gothenburg sweden. and that's our show for this week but there's more for you online of al-jazeera dot com slash t.t.c. it'll take you straight to our page which has an entire episode for you to catch up on. i'm sam is a band from the whole team on counting the cost thanks for joining us the news of al-jazeera is next.

xenophobia violent and beating the drum for an ethnic civil war in the heart of europe. a generation identity was at one time a foster's growing far right organization on the continent now watch the investigation that led to the french government banning the group. generation 8. part one of a special 2 part investigation on a. a unique yet endangered biodiversity lies in the heart of one of the for those tropical jungles there was a lot of misinformation about the cia last every half year and now the proud biologist becoming boss at their self conservation in their communities al-jazeera journeys deep into the rain forest to follow a scientist and her teams at fight to save the flora and fauna so precious in the

region women make science ecuador's hidden treasure on al-jazeera. be the hero the world needs right now. washing. or. jordan's former crown prince says he's under house arrest after what he calls a crackdown on critics of cooking up to know. about mcleod this is al jazeera live from also coming up. don't lose hope the pope's easter message is millions of europeans face tougher coronavirus for action.