what is your assessment of reports out of iran yesterday suggesting a deal has been agreed secure the release of nurse needs to go radcliffe and that the tank debt has been paid and secondly foreign secretary you are catching british foreign age to yemen to syria it's to the united nations children's fund the u.n. population. the u.n. aids fund water sanitation hygiene polio eradication conflict resolution humanitarian paradise ok some believe the questions there and just get a quick wrap up with the falcao correspondent in london nave i was going to say you have what the 2 men discussed but it seems to be more about what didn't they discuss. i think if we try to put this into more for a more general context of these the the toad the very fabric of what they were trying to say was to reaffirm the international rule based order of things in the wake of the trumpet ministration in the face of a more aggressive resurgent russia and china it was but it was the by the

administration and the government of boris johnson basically saying that you know let's put the past aside and let's sing from the same hymn sheet and the shapes the same should apply for the other open democracies that are members of the g. 7 but they did both also say that they've invited other key players to these talks as well so over the next few days will have probably here from south korea from india from australia and from south africa as well this as the u.k. and the united states shifts their foreign policy gaze away from europe that's dominated diplomacy for the past 50 years to the indo-pacific region largely in the face of concerns about what china's diplomatic and foreign policy and security goals are in the coming future we know that the us of the u.k. have sent military hardware to the south china sea we know that and the blinken

ahead of coming here to the united kingdom said that china was. being repressive when it comes to dealing with its own people and they grass if internationally and that seems to be the message from both rob and from blinken is that they will hold china and russia to account when it comes to some of the thought the aspects of its domestic and foreign policy but will also attempt to work with russia and china when it comes to very important issues like tackling climate change thank you nave barca on the left hand side of your screen on the right hand side it is the u.s. secretary of state and lincoln in a news conference with his u.k. can. the foreign secretary dominic just ahead of the 1st face to face g. 7 meeting g 7 ministers meeting that is coming up in london in the next couple of days. of course reaffirming their special relationship as they like to say between the united states and the u.k. you are right up to date with the news here more on that and the latest on the

situation particularly in india that will be. counting the cost is coming up. this is counting the cost on. business and economics this week. china's navy and its maritime militia terracing fisherman and antagonizing its neighbors or just defending their ancestral seas as beijing claims as the ones dominant u.s.

navy lost control of the south china sea. also this week henry ford may be best known for his car company but he's also the man who gave the world the 2 day weekend but could the pandemic be assuring in the 4 day working week. and environmental racism opposition grows to a pipeline that could put at risk the drinking water of black low income residents . in march more than $200.00 chinese fishing vessels occupied a reef in the philippines exclusive economic zone only the fishing vessels were manned by fishermen but by beijing's maritime militia which have been deployed in the south china sea to protect its quotes and stroll seas china claims the whitsun reef as its own to the north in the spratly islands beijing has built military installations and artificial islands as china contest islands from japan to malaysia the united states is deploying more warships to the region right now in

just the size of fleets washington has fallen behind so this is what the picture looks like china has 360 naval vessels compared to 298 for the united states beijing's maritime militia is estimated at $3000.00 ships these are not benign but some are kitschy to out with lethal weapons and manned by x. naval officers but the united states has also the support of australian japanese and indian warships in this region even france and the u.k. are sending vessels to the region as well that's one simple measure so how much does china spend on its military well the official number in 2019 was 183 and a half 1000000000. dollars but it also funds the militia and various other security services taking its total spending to an estimated $240000000000.00 this is still

short of the $705000000000.00 that washington spends on its defense budget and the total number comes to $934000000000.00 when you take into account the budget for homeland security the cia and other american agencies so with a more assertive china the united states in the philippines of restarted joint military exercises after last year's cancellation due to the pandemic but the 50 plus year defense pact hangs in the balance because of the philippines president roderigo to tertius initial decision to walk away from it for counting the costs al-jazeera has more now from manila. the u.s. they are duros a bill to a strike group returns to the south china sea for a 2nd time this year the u.s. 7th fleet says the visit is part of its routine operations. but regional tensions are flaring because of china's reclamation of many areas and its use of maritime

militia to enforce its illegal claims in the south china sea the u.s. considers the philippines one of its strongest allies in the region and these so-called balikatan exercises allow both countries to conduct joint military and humanitarian exercises. they resumed this week after being cancelled last year because of the pandemic but they've been toned down that's because philippine president with the good of her to cancel the visiting forces agreement between the 2 countries early last year after a political ally was denied a u.s. visa but faced with widespread criticism and mounting public pressure there to announced in november he was suspending that this issue and for 6 months the turtle has declared since it took office nearly 5 years ago that he wants an independent foreign policy that is free from america's influence and his so-called pivot

towards china policy is seen by many here as an attempt to appease the country but it come under attack by letting beijing demean and abuse our country the president is only signaling that we are weak that we do not stand up for ourselves and our interests despite 2 weeks of public outrage a deterrent to has remained silent over the occupation of the whitson reef in the south china sea by hundreds of chinese military vessels the arrival of dryness maritime militia and fishing with grief in my opinion is designed to put pressure on deter to. whoi quickly case and whether or not he's going to terminate the visiting forces agreement last week u.s. defense secretary lloyd austin spoke with this counterpart in the philippines secretary dilfer in there in sana to discuss the situation austin proposed measures to deepen defense cooperation but many here believe this will prove difficult

unless the visiting forces agreement is fully restored dogon al-jazeera manila. right let's get some analysis from dr graham on webb he's the adjunct fellow at the us rajaratnam school of international studies he joins us from singapore graeme great to see you there again in singapore give me your thoughts on the top line on the story the united states says there's 3000 ships in this region what's your reading of that my reading is that there's this assessment by the united states to transcend sri is an accurate one are there has been a quiet expansion of china's maritime in the shar all over the last decade alone this is not a new concept for the chinese military in particular the people's liberation army midi which feels this capable it's a concerted attempt by the chinese military to try and create

a force multiplier sorts over the wide expanse of the south china sea graeme can you explain for me one particular aspect of this which is kind of intriguing and compelling i guess in equal measure officially the militia isn't there to do what everyone else thinks the militia is there to do officially at some levels the militia doesn't even exist but on the other hand president xi jinping has spoken about it in public so there's an acceptance of the reality but there's a denial at the same time there in lies the problem because yes he has talked about that the central make a military commission the c.m.c. which oversees china's military forces or nancy an air has also referred to this idea on the shark it's a very established traditional concept for chinese strategy in fielding type forces traditionally on land but now at sea so this is not hiding about it i don't think

there's still this element of you know possible deniability because in or push come to shove the these vessels operating at sea. anted of being operated by fisherman i'll get you happy to receive some of the training for what we know in being able to operate in some of our era military style if you like but if you know that there's a limit the possible that i do not ability because they're also trained to to jettison whatever small munitions that they need carry the radio set which they use a communicate with conventional chinese naval. forces to control that all of order as well and so it does that there is this this this ambiguity about that which makes it a very we get problem if it's a creative device but seems to me as if it could potentially be quite sinister so key question for the united states if your a naval slash military planner in the pentagon how much of

a real threat are you thinking this militia might be it's a it's a very difficult problem because. you really can't fix change. physical shots or a shot across the bow can be very difficult because in terms of the moves of the of the orders that is rules of the road heaving with vessels we're talking about mabel ships. that you know that sort of make up this this arrangement. maritime militia i'm not quite. knowing of course the chinese of us that pushed this and because of the efficacy of maritime the sharp ability to disrupt naval patrols stand in the way and hold the fort if you like before 'd the mainstay conventional evil forces that people brought here. get the measles but have also followed suit copycatting effect going on where i came in states like vietnam and down the road the philippines i'm very sure will take up

a very similar approach sort of fighting fire with fire because of the atticus york marathon when the shot actually if you were at the. the philosophy to hold these forces accountable because of their possible tonight does this mean that for the united states if there's copycatting going on on the part of vietnam and potentially in the future on the part of the philippines fold that together with the militia by definition being the kind of force perhaps that the united states didn't anticipate or didn't see coming does that mean that china in effect. runs the south china sea in a way that the united states doesn't anymore and perhaps can never do in the future and i think we have ended up in that situation where the chinese essentially forget tough by virtue of that of that presence not just the occupation of ease i learned or artificial i own features that have grown into islands but also by the

fact that you know that a tree 1000 strong maritime militia is costing the net far and wide for the time the navy and for the chinese military in general that is exactly the kind of anti excess and you denial sort of flour approach that the chinese by design have want to feed for a long time mind you really are trying to defense budget is a 3rd of the american defense budget so the chinese have to make and just can't we are not the are expanding their conventionally naval forces they are trying to field several our aircraft carriers to operate in the south china sea but the maritime militia is a very effective instrument to sort of plan to get until the chinese navy particularly matures and becomes a force to be hunted to to slaughter well you ought to be to reckon with graeme thank you so much we must leave it there graeme on the web there talking to us from

singapore thank you. us politicians and activists are rallying against the. action of an oil pipeline in the u.s. city of memphis environmental activists say it puts at risk the drinking water of low income residents a majority of whom a black the former vice president al gore has called it a case of environmental racism manuel republic reports. for months residents in south memphis have been fighting against the construction of an oil pipeline dorsey says she's worried over what it might mean if a proposed oil pipeline were to cut right through the neighborhood she's lived in for most of her life my. why now would be buying it the rule humanity behold there's a growing movement among the local population against the plans for the energy project the concern from activists like justin j. pearson is over the ground being proposed for the pipeline which is expected to

pass over the memphis awkward for so one of the most severe negative consequences is to our environment they're planning to build a $1500.00 p.s.-i crudo a pipeline atop the memphis sandakan for what supplies drinking water to over a 1000000 people in addition to this they're building at the top an area that's the most seismically active in the southeastern part of the united states. the pipeline would also pass through box town a predominantly black neighborhood that critics say is already exposed to pollution from several nearby industrial sites in recent weeks a growing chorus of voices have spoken out against the project including at least 28 members of congress and former u.s. vice president al gore it is reckless racist it is a real we're trying to stop this i climbed it's called the i tell you i climb the memphis mayor just came out of yes that days ago which gave us all some great it encourage when the 2 companies i know believe the city with threats of lawsuits i

do that everywhere even though they're legal theories are often not seen as what leftists is standing up because the black citizens of memphis and they're not white allies are standing up to say no more of this and our middle races a controversial aspect of this pipeline and others like it across the united states is the use of nationwide permit 12 which allows phone. fuel companies to fast track projects like the bay haley a connection pipeline the parent company responsible for the project valero energy corp did not respond to our request for a comment but the company has defended the project promising the pipeline will meet environmental standards. almost a century ago the 5 day working week was born after henry ford decided workers with more leisure time would buy more cars he was right now with many people flipping open their laptops and working from home during the pandemic there is

a desire for some not to return to 5 days in the office well they may be in luck a number of companies that have switched to a 4 day working week believe productivity and employee wellbeing has improved and spain is preparing to pilot a 32 hour working week sometime this coming autumn comes some 20 odd years since france kept its working week there at 35 hours let's get more on this initiative with you john chong a researcher on the labor market and director of the welfare state research cluster at the university of kent in the u.k. he welcome back to counting the cost is this a fad or is there a genuine momentum here that will introduce it and keep it i guess becoming part of the status quo of how we work i don't think this is a fad i think after expression depend on make a lot of countries as well as companies are seeing the benefits of having shorter hours not only because of the productivity issues that you've mentioned but about worker retention recruitment as well as kind of addressing some of the societal

costs of long hours work such as mental health issues burn out etc and increasingly we are seeing movements from across the road to really get this movement at a national level even but capping the working week at 35 hours as the legislation stands in france is different to working from home you know so this is being spun i guess by employers or by big companies are saying this is actually a good thing for employees mental health but sometimes a lot of people don't actually like working from home because it increases that feeling of isolation it increases not having those watercooler moments not interacting with people in the workplace and getting the the dynamism and the synergy from actually having a face to face conversation. absolutely other things i do want to point out though the 4 day week working from home are 2 very different policies having said that i

think another reason why the 4 day week has become more popular is because as people work from home the idea working 40 hours in the office becomes absolute so it is more you know we easy or to kind of get rid of the idea that working hours necessarily lead to productivity or a commitment of workers and introduce wrecking from home and for a week at the same time about those isolation issues and having that collaboration with colleagues except truck i definitely see the point in that difficult content being able to see each other also kind of at a whim maybe at hockley does have an influence on maybe collaboration or kind of these moments where you find ideas but this doesn't necessarily mean they're working from home should not be introduced it's more about how do you then make less a virtual water cooler spaces are very chill collaboration areas where people could actually really have time and kind of space to think about these issues as well so

you know there are issues but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't introduce these policies certain regions in spain are going to be experimenting with this towards the end of this year autumn time in northern europe how do you judge and how long does it take to judge whether this has been a success or not because if the companies are making more money they would say yes it's a success if we're spending less money or no money moving our staff around spain that's a win win but it might not be a win win for the employees well i think it takes a while it's not something that you could just kind of gather evidence and then make a decision in the couple of weeks time i think dick specially given that going for a 4 day week is really entailing only huge to disrupt in the way we think about productivity our work processes and the way we work now that doesn't come just you know in a day or 2 that takes a long process where. there has to be a lot of discussions between employers and employees and that i would say i can't give you an exact date but i you know it would take months if not

a year for those processes to really take place and be efficient enough for us to say actually this is the benefits the other thing is that a lot of the benefits actually don't only come in through the productivity per hour but actually in terms of reduction of cygnus you know retention recruitment issues where we are getting rid of eliminating some of the costs of the existing work cultures that we live in so those things take some time and again you know there might be some hesitations by even workers in introducing these were the weeks although in general we do see that there is more of an excitement and it has it haitian it will take a while for people to get used to it as well and as people spend less time at work they will start enjoying things outside of work in terms of spending time with family spending time doing more proper leisure other than t.v. watching which really will reap so much more benefits in terms of societal costs as

well do you think this will catch on around the world you know we we're well used to people like jack ma the billionaire co-founder of but big e-commerce firm in china he's a firm believer in the record 996 rule isn't to you work from 9 am to 9 pm 6 days a week you rest on the 7th day that's how he thinks you should make big money. i think that approach is wrong and we have you know as a part of this very large kind of academic community that looks at working hours and this impact not just on productivity on but also on the social costs there is so many social costs that come with that one to begin with is not very productive those very long hours and resulting in lower productivity and you even actually end up making a mistake to the point where it becomes negative productivity for most workers i'm not saying all but for most workers also the long term costs of that so workers tend to burn out easily they go into sickness and absenteeism which is not

disruptive only for the workers but the whole work group or the company as a whore there's a huge implications in terms of the employer you know the impact it has even on the partners and children's children suffer emotionally psychologically even their cognitive development may be hindered if parents do not spend time with them so i don't think that's necessarily a way to productivity and again we see so many evidence pointing to that direction in fact working shorter hours can be beneficial again for the individual for the company but us as a society as a whole is specially when we think about the social cost of very long working hours again it might be that in the very end you know introduction 40 a week may be a bit costly for certain companies where you do need to introduce more workforce to the company but having said that on the longer run in terms of retention recruitment hourly productivity but also ensuring that workers are not burned how

workers are productive not just some for that they are that we are for a long period of time data not moved to other companies or leave the labor market altogether these are the kind of the benefits we can see and the benefits that impacts society in terms of societal wellbeing and welfare and terms a reduction of health costs can be really immense we'll have to leave it there. great to talk to you here this week on counting the cost for inviting me now the crew of a cargo ship abandoned in the kenyan port of mombasa have now been trapped on board for more than 18 months they've not been paid for even longer they rely on handouts for food clothing and medicine al-jazeera as malcolm webb has been to visit them. it's moses' mooney's job to look after the crews of abandoned ships he took us to one on its more dock kenya's coast one and a half years ago and on loaded a cargo of construction materials here at the port of mombasa and it's been in this

channel ever since waiting for instructions from its lebanese owners that the syrian crew has never came the only way to meet them is by climbing on board. since they can't leave the ship so i will get. this into action that was the last of the missions and there's a. moment. many many situation like this i would submit the ship's crew haven't been paid since months before it was abandoned the port city of mombassa is just there it's only about a kilometer away so close but yet so far for the sailors stuck on board restrictions in immigration rules mean they can't go on the land plus if they abandon the ship they risk losing the wages that they're owed in some cases up to 3 years and so they're confined within the decks of the ship which they say i've come

to feel like a prison for is a whiny the ship's cook sailed with it to turkey romania and russia before getting stranded here he has a young child back home in syria and. the mother has with us nobody feels what i feel i'm stuck here and i wish the owner could feel what we feel if his children were here he would know what we feel i have been away from my family for 3 years. they've been confined in these cabins and he wait for a resolution and they're not alone around 6000 seafarers face the same problem on hundreds of ships abandoned by their owners. the crew here has depended on food and water from a charity called mission to seafarers brought regularly by moses he says ship's owners try to push abandon cruise to debt limit they want to talk because a crisis to the city they want them to get tired and leave this year so that they don't pay us some of the crew their wives left to them because they left us to

continue i want to live with modern celebrity. abandon cargoes can be a problem too. it was an abandoned ship cargo that caused a devastating explosion and lebanon's capital beirut last year the crew of m.t.g. non-home their ordeal will soon be over a court in mombasa ordered the ship to be sold in an auction the owners didn't respond to our request for comment. for nothing just no good but no sound like. sound like reading here or their friends and good morning we say our goodbyes and leave the crew waiting for whoever won the auction to pay up and if that happens they'll soon be leaving too and finally flying home to thousands more like them around the world still going nowhere malcolm webb al-jazeera mombasa kenya.

for this week but there's more for you online at al-jazeera dot com slash c 2 c. take you straight to our page with the entire episode to watch again whenever you want to stop me from the counting the cost team here and thanks for joining us the news on al-jazeera is next. young women with a passion for space i used to dream about working in a few school company like not sound and i found that a small stuff a science a giant leap for womankind in kind of a start you don't place it inside and at the scheduled time the south like to be

sent into space women make science cultist on space school on al-jazeera. understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the bomb so much on how you take it we'll bring you the news and current affairs that matter to you the . u.s. secretary of state val's a decisive response if western forces withdrawing from afghanistan are targeted. santamaria here in doha this is the world news from al-jazeera patients dying

criminal overflowing and a vaccine program chaos lovemore the hopeless condition of the people in india as kobe cases approach 20.