the. magic. but. we really don't know and we're really on. the path may be uncertain but in new york the goal of eliminating carbon emissions at least is no longer up for debate kristen salumi al jazeera new york. and let's take you through some of the headlines here now just 0 now police in the u.s. have used tear gas to disperse protesters in minneapolis the mayor's declared a state of emergency but people are defying an 11 hour curfew tensions are growing over the police shooting of an unarmed black man chabris hansie has more from washington d.c. . before the curfew there was a video for don't tell right elsewhere in the city

a lot of the folks there who left that curfew there and did gather once again outside the police department in brooklyn center and we saw an uneasy standoff for several hours but largely peaceful and then what was i think rather golding for all of the protesters when they 1st arrived there was the the police had actually hoisted a blue lives matter pro police thin blue line flag up on the flag place a really quite defiant from the police despite the fact that one of their offices including is accused of homicide right now against a young 20 year old a 20 year old man george floyd's brother has testified in the trial of former police officer derrick shelvin in minneapolis felonies floyd described his brother as a family man who loved this siblings and had a one of a kind relationship with his mother. china says japan's decision to release more than a 1000000 tonnes of contaminated water into the sea from its ruined fukushima nuclear

plant is extremely irresponsible people are protesting in tokyo japan says the water is being treated and doesn't pose any risk israel's prime minister has declared iran the greatest threat to the middle east vowing not to let it gain nuclear capability his comments follow the apparent sabotage of iran's main nuclear facility the e.u. is calling on the international community to act after a report found the syrian government likely used the chlorine bomb in 2018 the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons says there are reasonable grounds to believe syria's air force used the bomb on homes in the rebel held region injuring 12 people the government has denied using chemical weapons during the 10 years civil war. headlines the news continues here now to syria after counting the cost.

al jazeera is news the biggest stories of the week delivered to your. analysis and opinions to. subscribe. to the conversation. hello i'm santa maria this is counting the cost on al-jazeera your weekly look at the world of business and economics this week for later this hour and it is in many ways the breakthrough technology of the pandemic vaccines that teach ourselves 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 postcode 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 non fundable and why are they sparked 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 hasn't it virus pandemic locked flatten 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 n a messenger rather nuclear acid and it's a game changer let's start with the basics though the traditional way to make

a vaccine 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 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 the turner as well which uses m r n

a its covert 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 they 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 lifesaving 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 jimmy had 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 this technology it's a commodity not something that's commodities and stood on growers you know they're growing soon as a commodity this technology generally a vaccine will take at least 8 to 10 years to develop but this technology for the specific overtaxing that some of these big pharmaceutical who companies use of 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 technology around that will hopefully how sure lives 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 really starting globally globally not does it come out you would sanitizes mosque 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 40 dollars but for modernity that's listen i'm not stuck and as we all know it's a county sector did tremendously well which on the it found from $30.20 is heinz from $56.00 body into the u.s. of course that's where you put your money and having said that since these and if you had peaks we have now seem somewhat were dropped from the consultation and the share prices so yes if we had a time machine to go back in 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 crossed 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 stocks buy and take up 118 percent. turnout 305 percent again over the 12 months q a 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 and pfizer well known for that huge market couplet 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. it's number 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 these big chimes dives one of the sectors that perform tremendously watching the pentagon it would be over one obviously being tech stocks in the technology sector of the not the doors at the close to the epicenter stay with us one yet i believe also it goes beyond and we've been focusing on m r n a t r and they. made it so many fields kerry is there something else we need to be keeping an eye on or is it all sort of in the same under the same umbrella no the stepping in 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 to edges one a psychological edge to 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 put 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 is a hope which is again another reason why these profitability and also the share prices of the specific from 2 in the 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 a consolidation of 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 the overall majority if not all of us a possible year but there's certain things that we might have looked at as luxuries or stuff that we didn't i spent time not watching netflix but it has become essential because it's been nothing else to do so those 2 sectors over what i 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 can be a stock of return to lifestyle events a large scale so got rings so to say so deep in 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 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. sir for the philippines now where unfortunately the economic picture is bleak not

really want to 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 to ted 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 allendale going to investigate from manila. aaron joel sylvester known as a.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 revolves for how 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 2 session we are overselling it by no means a cure all simply opening up the. creek of investments quality of local governance is the most important factor for in close off 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. dogs 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 zatanna related diseases that is diseases which have made the jump from animal to human have cost the region 2 $100000000000.00 previously between $22010.00 so let's pick up on that with our guest south say alice jana who is the united nations undersecretary general for economic and social commission for asia and the pacific and she is 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 still

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 mind dean is a much larger scale than the previous ben and me but several countries in the region because of the previous experiences with with especially sars and i'm sure some lessons learned specs are at best practice that now day. they are better able to prepare and if this is shown by 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 down but not only that the. population have been better able prepared and all this may years 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 a defect if identification a con phrase saying and then also. you know i. did it but 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 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 yes we have to take a more inclusive starting with a better 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 indications the government and how to bet are delivered to public services social services to the population in need right and those are the sorts of things if we get 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. 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. space but since the pandemic crisis have been brought along of course yeah that's base is getting smaller and smaller and also the depth 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 for the least developed countries and now also a call to include the middle income countries as specially those countries that are vulnerable to did that situation yes. first 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 that although maybe in this situation is is is proven to be very challenging and made it sound say alister banner 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 through n f t'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 alan 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 gets to lart. i think we should us question more in general what is art and art can have many values actually 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. want 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 investigate get for that money yes indeed well i think exposure is is very important here because digital art is always on display 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 again in terms of short term economic value it's very appealing at least to the 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 unself i wouldn't say saw or minutes there is indeed 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 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 like and 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 taste 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 in we 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 ti's there are projects that are going to use a nifty is 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 the can be made rare and make it into something that is financial that becomes very liquid very interesting stuff talk to giovanni all of it's a 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 a je 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 as it though for this edition of counting the cost i'm come out santamaria from the whole thing thanks for joining us the news on al-jazeera is. planet earth a wondrous diverse ecosystem but human activity is the escalating climate change and posing an existential threat you don't get to research but talk about that's really scary in the lead up to us to al-jazeera around special causes documentaries discussion tend to pool exploring the consequences of our actions and inactions very hard. a part of you know all civilisation culture and showcasing ways in which some are seeking to turn the tide here straight ahead there are 3 individuals in very rare to see that it's really exciting the season of programming exploring the climate crisis ahead of the earth day on al-jazeera. in

pakistan's largest city climate change and water shortages and driving some residents to desperate measures it's 101 east meets the water of corruption on no 0. i'm sammy's a dam with a look at the headlines here and al-jazeera now police officers in minnesota have made multiple arrests and used tear gas and pepper spray to try and disperse crowds grows over the police shooting of an unarmed black man protesters remain on the streets despite a curfew coming into effect after a state of emergency was declared dante right who was killed during a traffic stop on sunday fisher reports on what a police chief's call.