has announced the service at windsor castle on april 17th is to have no public access for public procession beforehand as per the u.k.'s pandemic regulations the number of mourners will be limited to 30 prince harry he's distanced himself from the royal family will return from his new home in the us for it but his pregnant wife make unmarketable not on the advice of her doctor. how to 0 of the. i mean clock in doha with the headlines here on al-jazeera and countries across latin america are rushing into restrictions as they battle to contain coronavirus outbreaks the problems of being confound it compounded by its slave scene rollouts and weak health systems but in the worst affected countries brazil some local lock downs are being eased even though infections and the death rate all soaring rafał alcan and the pani is a professor of public safety he says brazil's high death rate is that is the result

of the president's reckless coronavirus policies over in brazil as the seizures are not taken by science decisions every day by the all it in the brazilian president is very i gave very vocal against lockdowns so he put some pressure on the state borders and also on this he made years joey's down as may as well as by just well and as fast as possible and this one of the reasons why we are having so many people being cured by these viral because they way they are dealing with that is a political way is not the same way some of the world's poorest countries may have to wait until june for the 2nd dose of their vaccine supply shortages have seen nearly all deliveries through the kovacs program blocked the w.h.o. scheme is designed to give poor nations fair access to that seems. people in kurdistan are voting on proposed changes to the constitution critics say the overhaul will give more power to the president and will threaten democracy the

president decided to part of a cold for the referendum after months of political turmoil arlen's prime minister has warned against a spiral back to 14 police officers were injured in violence in belfast protesters threw petrol bombs around the burning car into a police vehicle and sang about bricks it among other grievances. an earthquake off the coast of indonesia has killed at least 7 people the magnitude 6 quake hit the main island of java hundreds of buildings have been damaged tremors were felt in the neighboring island of bali and ash from a volcanic eruption on the caribbean island of st vincent is now falling on the island of barbados which lies almost 190 kilometers away or sort of is say it could get even more explosive in the coming days and weeks. yet today with headlines more news coming up right after one of one east. it's a very bleak picture for a lot of americans out there

a white supremacy impacts all of our if you're putting more money into the hands of someone 1st taking money out of the hands of other workers their own goes to their camp it becomes us versus them this is the deal about constraining nuclear program the bottom line the big questions on. hello i'm come on santa maria this is counting the cost on al-jazeera your weekly look at the world of business and economics this week. are and it is in many ways the breakthrough technology of the pandemic vaccines that teach our selves how to trigger an immune response and ultimately protect us from infectious diseases look at the companies behind the vaccines how to invest and whether you should. also this week the philippines looks at relaxing rules for foreign investors in the hope of boosting a post covert recovery but it may not provide the balance the government's hoping

for and another set of letters to get your head around. just what is a normal fundable. why of a rally in the crypto digital art market and does this latest investment craze have legs. so the past year it's been one of touchstone words has been a virus pandemic locked. in the curve social distancing all these sorts of things arguably right now though the word of the moment is vaccine there's little doubt science has been our exit from this pandemic but how often do you consider the science behind the science and how credibly significant it is not only have vaccines been created inside a year don't forget that but the technology behind the biotech vaccine has the potential to be one of the biggest breakthroughs of modern times it is called m r and messenger rather nuclear. acid and it's a game changer let's start with the basics though the traditional way to make

a vaccine is with a weakened or an inactive virus that gets injected into us triggers an immune response produces antibodies protects us and case we get infected with the real thing it's hugely successful it saves $2.00 to $3000000.00 lives a year m.r. n a though does it differently it teaches our cells how to make a protein to trigger that immune response and it's the kind of technology which opens the door to treatments of cancer heart disease even brain diseases like alzheimer's and parkinson's. now you mention the company leading the way here by ontic it was only founded 13 years ago in germany it's been working on this hour and a technology for a decade or so it also has various cancer trials underway by intakes vaccine part of a joint venture with find the 172 year old american multinational and it's a partnership expected to net them a share in $15000000000.00 with the profits if that modernity as well which uses m

r n a it's coded 19 vaccine it expects sales of $18400000000.00 from it but then as pipeline of drugs includes trial vaccines for the flu virus and hiv that's on top of all its work on cancer drugs but for every success there is a struggle for example germany's cure vaca its m r n a vaccine is yet to be approved and it was already part of a controversy involving speculation the trumpet ministration had attempted to acquire the company even so when glaxo smith kline border 9 percent stake in cuba of act last july so with all that do we find ourselves with a bit of a dichotomy here life saving life changing technology for the good of humanity but with a whole lot of money to be made as well and not just for the companies we're going to talk to independent analyst jim write about this joining us from london. so interesting you've got joint ventures going on here for the most part and i start to wonder did big pharma kind of miss out they always needed these smaller biotech

companies to push this technology forward but this technology it's a commodity you know something that's commodities and stood on growers you know they're growing soon as a commodity this technology generally and that seems to take at least 8 to 10 years to develop but this technology for the specific overtaxing that some of these big pharmaceutical who companies abuse develop the the hope to kill it showed that you can actually do this on shorter time sponsor imagination and story come out to a degree and a good way that this technology cannot be used for the bench. the greater good too cruel many more illnesses that subtly costs multiple lives every year and i think it's more pusey us now not so much the big science has missed out on this nugget but that these big pharmaceutical companies can now adapt to forces new to iran that will hopefully how short life is after this terrible risk of the pandemic is over 100 from hague's big pharma are a little bit more palatable as well because

a lot of people have a lot of issues shall we say with the money that big pharma makes and the profits that they make and how much they charge us for the drugs it's a very profitable industry and again if we had a time machine and you'd look back on what you would do a 2nd one year ago let's say the end of march 2021 this pandemic is restarting globally globally not does it come out you would buy sanitizes mask and you were purchased pharmaceutical stocks because we saw the pfizer stock hit the last somewhere below $30.00 at the end of march 2020 then it went up to some of my photos but far more done and that's listen i'm not stuck in as we all know it's a county sector do tremendously well which on this it found from $30.20 is highs from 56 body into the u.s. of course that's where you put your money and having said that since these and yet peaks we have now seem somewhat we're dropping a consolidation and the share prices so i guess if we had a time machine to go back into these markets but we do see it look like that ship

is south unless we have a bittersweet moment where these factions are not proven to be as affected fingers cross will touch we're not at that stage yet we're saying is you've started on the numbers here we've got some of our own which i might just bring up to show to our view as this is over a 12 month period looking at some different starts by and take out 118 percent. turnout 305 percent again over the 12 months cure vaccine even with a issues it had 65 percent and then another one which i must admit i hadn't had a huge man translate 63 percent can you tell us a little bit about that. there's multiple brands in the pharmaceutical industry that really we hadn't heard of so much before it obviously johnson and johnson the pfizer well known for that huge market couplets that capitalization about it you know got trans and johnson got a market cap of someone like 420000000 pfizer some like 200000000000 but there are industry instances of these mulch mall less known companies like the one you just mentioned and firma is another one that's one that's seen a vaccine that's to be

a lot more effective than of us and we've seen the stock prices so i think generally pharmaceutical companies were that i mean stocks less well known or these big chimes dives one of the sectors that perform tremendously well turn the pandemic with the over one obviously being tech stocks and the technology sector of the not the doors at the close to the epicenter say with us one yet i believe also it goes beyond and we've been focusing on m r n a t r n a. i made it so many fields kerry is there something else you need to be keeping an eye on or is it all sort of in the same under the same umbrella no the stepping into a difference is i think we can consolidate those acronyms there's so many different kind of you just mentioned that even i'm struggling at the time to assess we have to remember that with this science i'm sippin in this pandemic there is a sentiment so i just want a psychological edge to it like for example we saw in the past couple of days a lot of the controversy over the extra ticket back saying that does not use this

technology but because of that controversy why regulators might be pulling back or some authorities might be saying that we have to delay blacksnakes in certain age groups and we have to also take into account that come way down on the whole medical sector as a hope which is again another reason why these profitability and also the share prices of the specific from 2 in that industry can come soon a contagion effect a contagion effect that might be one risk then in all of the other. elements of the hall and i think that's something that we have to take into account the markets no one industries become very. that's not trying to share prices but as soon as we have some so consolidation of the market and looks attractive to an investor to what are the other ones what are the other industries to keep an eye on that have let's face it benefitted from the pandemic the tip of the tongue right there said archie you know you've got your streaming devices from the netflix is to the googles be alphabetic but really what we saw is technology stocks what with that

zoom microsoft and so on so many parts of this world economy now every day life is being cut off all 'd 'd the overall majority if not all of us a hospital yet but there's certain things that we might have looked at as luxuries or stuff that we did and i spent time not watching netflix but it has become essential because it's been nothing else to do so those 2 sectors overall have done extremely well and prospered in this environment is from a search goes and it's technology and i do think that we have a lot of the social distancing measures or working remotely or this could be a stock of return to lifestyle events a large scale so i got rooms so to say so i do from the technology sector so yes it's probably run its course but there's still some gaps that can reach one same time in the ceiling while we say that in the sense that he will always be the mother of invention wanted to me last night in london great to talk to you thank you thank you. to the philippines now where unfortunately the economic picture is bleak not really wanted this time

last year when the country went into lockdown unemployment had risen to a record high of 17.7 percent it's down of those highs now but president draghi detent he says the economy is sinking deeper into debt losing more than $800000000.00 every day and on top of that inflation that it's highest in nearly 2 years as well so will congress his plan to open up the economy to more foreign owned businesses help reverse all of this camilla alan dogan investigates from manila. aaron joel sylvester known as e.j. says life has never been this challenging he owned a chattel agency for 20 years but it went bankrupt after the coronavirus pandemic broke out. he worked part time as a musician but that too has now been put on hold some of the luxuries we used to enjoy we had to see to stop that 1st. course revolts were hard to adjust our

budgets with food expenses utilities we save whatever we can and spend only. with what we need small and medium sized enterprises like the chav agency e.g. used to operate accounted for around 60 percent of jobs in the country but latest figures show more than 2 thirds of these businesses have been seriously affected or closed completely by the coronavirus pandemic reporting amendments the certain economic provisions of the night but congressional efforts to revive discussions about amending the constitution to relax its foreign ownership restrictions have not been welcomed with open arms critics say the focus should instead be on providing relief to those suffering in the current recession we are overselling it by no means a cure all simply opening up the. nami of investments quality of local governance is the most important factor for in-close of foreign direct investments

and by quality of local in governance this might include the rule of law but what congress wants is to make economic laws much more competitive by allowing foreign investment in public utilities at the moment that's restricted to filipino citizens along with the rights to own public land and natural resources not because there are short term needs that we will forgo working on a longer term solution i make it and then it was really a wake up call for us it has become clear that longer term structural reforms are needed. the philippines implemented one of the longest and strictest lock downs in the world last year in an attempt to stop the spread of the corona virus but as in other countries the economy has taken a battering. dog and al jazeera in manila so it's not a pretty picture and really aside from vietnam they haven't been many southeast

asian economies that have managed to weather the pandemic even with the swift lock downs a year ago in fact the united nations believes 89000000 people in the region have been pushed into poverty 140000000 jobs have been lost as measured by the loss of working hours all told countries in the asia pacific spent $4.00 trillion dollars in response to the pandemic and here's an interesting statistic as well past 0 tonic related diseases that is diseases which have made the jump from animal to human have cost the region $200000000000.00 previously between $22010.00 so let's pick up on that with our guest i meet at south say. who is the united nations undersecretary general for economic and social commission for asia and the pacific and she's with us from bangkok today thank you so much for your time asia has experience here doesn't it it's dealt with mers it's dealt with sars it's dealt

with h one n one can we deduce that it should have been able to maybe deal with the covert 19 a bit better or is this just on a different scale. yes definitely devon lake of it mine is a much larger scale yet then to previous pandemic but several countries in the region because of the previous experiences with with especially sars and i'm sure some lessons learned spec's perhaps best practice that now day. they are better able to prepare and if this is shown by the several countries in the region that they manage. make so far quite well that if they speaking of course of course for example i said vietnam taiwan was another example as well in fact you would say those countries have done better than a lot of western developed countries what they get right yet again because of

beavis experiences then response the fast early response including in certain instances the initial lock down but not only that the. population have been better able prepared and all these measures the health question in measures are readily you know in places like you know the simple hand washing social distancing wet wearing my i think that's immediately being taken up and 2nd is also the effect if identification a con phrase saying and then also. you know. up at the measures that follows we are still very much in the middle of this pandemic vaccination still have a long way to go but we always have to think about the recovery about coming out of this and i think about the idea of an inclusive recovery one which doesn't leave

less developed countries behind and and collectively brings everyone together do you think that's that is possible and that countries. planning ahead for that how to recover bet that in the sense that we will we do not one yet duty for going back to break a pandemic situation so dan for a recovery that will lead to more inclusive more is 11 and more sustainable of course we have to translate that the we have to take more inclusive starting with a bet that health care system and then universal health coverage that's one second to scale up the social protection system which again many countries in the region have not that system in place and also how to digitalize then we learn digitalisation is very important then

especially for for example for to inform the sec that s m e's to migrate to digital platform that will help a lot not to mention the education sector the government and how to bet deliver the public services social services to the population in need right and those are the sorts of things if we get those in place that will help obviously mr de any other crisis which comes further down the track in the more immediate term there you've got issues with debt you've got a lot of countries which are racking up debt at the moment i'm wondering how they're going to deal with that the development banks in the region on board with helping them out in the in the in the near term our region several countries in the region are our worry in that quiet better position if i can say that so dire for in the initial stage. every each every dept to g.d.p. ratio is about 40 percent every yes so dire for many countries in the region

were better able to provide to provide the fiscal stimulus need that because they have the fisc. but since the pandemic prices have been for a long of course that's base is getting smaller and smaller and also the dept situation is also getting more worrying so dire for within the global framework as we know there is this initiative so-called d s s i said dep suspension initiative especially border least developed countries and now also a call to include the middle income countries as specially those countries that are vulnerable to that situation yes so that's one 1st step and 2nd again we need to utilize more. in

a 5 day if. let fiscal instrument such as that swap agreement or arrangement and also but again the basic basic the basic domestic resources mobilization is we need also to still implement there although maybe in this situation is is is proven to be very challenging and made it sound say alister bana from the united nations in bangkok thank you so much for your time we do appreciate it thank you very much finally this week well something which i'm struggling with quite frankly i want you to have a look at this 1st of all ok this is a piece of art by the american artist mike winkleman he goes by the name people it is called every day's the 1st $5000.00 days it's sold at auction at christie's recently for $69300000.00 now art sells for a lot for all sorts of reasons but this is a piece of digital art it's not hanging in a gallery me with

a bunch of pixels and someone paid $70000000.00 for it allow me to attempt to explain the technology behind the crypto artwork is called n f t's or non fungible tokens now if you know anything about critter currencies you know about block chain this is along similar lines and if he's a buyer can be certain of the authenticity of the art because it's all stored digitally on the block chain like a digital recorder or a ledger if you line. but then what is art is that a tweet because the malaysian see of the block chain service paid $2900000.00 for the very 1st tweet posted by twitter chief executive jack dorsey $3000000.00 technically for a tweet and we did all this madness out well back in 2011 with ny and cat and mame which sold for 500000 dollars well i have questions and i'm sure you do too so let's put them to talk to giovanni call of its who is assistant professor of

digital humanities at the university of amsterdam a visiting research at the elon cheering institute as well it's nice to have you with us dr i've been a little bit tongue in cheek with my introduction today mostly because of the extraordinary amounts of money involved what i'd like you to do is to explain that so for example with the tweet the 3 $1000000.00 paid for the tweet what does that invest to actually get for that money. fareed a very excellent question that pertains to what really is the violent crime digital art. i think we should us question more in general what is valued by art and art can have many values naturally we can have 1st of all as subjective but personally we might like art because of its beauty. but also art can provide visibility and reputation to its owner and furthermore violent art can be an investment or can have economic value and i think for digital art the

interesting question to ask is what is its value for whom who is interested in in digital art and i've been arguing i'm going to let you just quickly i'm sorry because i want to pick up on the point that you you've made someone about about about the value it's like shares in the end in a company it is you know they are worth what someone is willing to pay for them in this case what does the investing get for that money yes indeed well i think exposure is is very important here because digital art is always on this point so contrary to to fine art i mean it's not hanging in someone's living that it's always online and this is extremely interesting for for some people right i really care about online visibility so the repetition and the buy something that everybody can see. through them or i think digital art is also very liquid once or contrary to traditional art and fine art it is going to be very easy for them to make it

into something financial to sell it but also to talk and as it so to to sell fractional ownership of a digital talk and this is again in terms of short term economic value it's very appealing at least to a newer generations is it quite a nation at the moment i notice that the person who bought the people piece of art was actually a currency entrepreneur and self wouldn't say so or minutes there is indeed a new capitals coming and in particular a crypto capitals these are not the only the only people interested in digital art by all means part of it seems to be the case at least for the for the most important serials. but i would also underline that i don't think this is really very surprising i mean a every new generation has asserted itself with distinct artistic taste so it seems to be the case here that we're witnessing new generations of new companies on this

is just by mean what they can find fundable. the amounts of money and the profile which all of this has garnered at the moment is that lend credibility to n f t's does it make them them more visible apart from the out the actual end if hates because i think that's probably the underlying story here isn't it what a non fungible token how that technology can be applied to any number of other things beyond this is really an excellent question because you know fungible tokens really have a much broader scope done than digital art so in a sense it is somewhat easy to start using them for collectibles and and indeed what we are seeing is that most of the mainstream artwork is taking notice and jumping who have recently had people say last christmas and we have 4 coming sale at sotheby's by the artist bach. but to your question i think and if keys are

very interesting for many more applications that will probably take a little bit more time to to develop it's very exciting and if he's there projects that are going to use and if he's to tokenize mind including intellectual property but even personal time and personal commitments so it's really flexible technology that allows us to take something that is they can be made rare and made into something that is fine and that becomes very liquid very interesting stuff talk to giovanni all of its joining us from amsterdam thank you for your time thank you very much for your invitation and that is our show for this week but we want to hear from you want to know what you think what you want to say as well to your d.m.a. at kemal h.a.e. if you tweeting the hash tag is a j c t c if email is more your thing it's counting the cost of al-jazeera dot net and there's always more for you online at al-jazeera dot com slash c.t.c. that will take you straight to our page with all our previous episodes for you to

catch up on whenever you like that is it though for this edition of counting the cost i'm come out santamaria from the whole team thanks for joining us the news on al-jazeera. is right wing government and the catholic church are the very best of friends the church supports the government the government supports the truth their critics claim they both draw power from demonizing others they find an enemy and then they try and scare other people with that image and it's not ideology hatred but have recent changes to abortion laws pushed the public to 4. people in power investigates poland's church and state alliance on a physio. xenophobia violent and beating the drum for an ethnic civil war in the heart of europe. generation identity was at one time the fastest growing far right organization on

the continent now watch the investigation that led to the french government banning the group. generation hate. part 2 of a special 2 part investigation on a ready. brazil's 2nd largest city eases coronavirus restrictions even though the countries averaging 4000 deaths a day. on it clark this is out there in life and also coming up they died fighting for their democratic rights we look at a vote in kurdistan that threatens to return to authoritarian rule. loyalists feeling betrayed by breaks it among other grievances what's igniting violence in

northern ireland 23 years after a peace deal. a volcano that erupted on a caribbean island.