and all of these missions helps us greatly like phrases, the fact that i am talking to you and you, okay? sure, actually see me here in to where you are and then people are in door or can see that means a huge thing. huge about a how did it come about or live from space mission, because we needed to do this well as the rib i've the lunar surface. so the developments that we can to get out for these missions would help us greatly in our lives. no question about ah, park. just a quick check of a headlines here on al jazeera, more than 600 marches, have taken place across the u. s. to defend women's reproductive rights. they've happened in the wake of tough new abortion laws, particularly texas, which are the effectively band practice. it's incredibly important that we make sure that we have port roe v wade. and if that doesn't happen, we need federal protection under the law to make sure that women and doctors all

around the state of michigan and around the united states are not literally in prison and are turned into criminals simply for exercising their right to choose. well, i actually have 2 daughters here, and of course i want them to have control over their lives later when they grow up . so it's really important to come out here in a 4000 refugees and migrants, including women and children, have been rounded up and detained. in libya, the u. s. has one migrant was killed and at least 15 others injured in the cracked out outgoing philippine president rodrigo detector has announced he's retiring from politics feeling speculation. his daughter may run to the top job. he confirmed, he won't stand for the vice presidency next year's elections. the results of catalogues. first of the legislative council election have been announced. 30 members have been elected to the 45 member. sure. a council. the rest will be appointed by the countries emir. no women were elected to the council despite

$27.00 candidates running in the poles, voter turnout was $63.00 and a half percent official results from george's election or expected soon. the vote took place a day after former president mc out sock has really was arrested. he'd returns an exam to support the opposition in the votes seen as a crucial test for the ruling party suckers, but he was convicted in absentia in 2018 for abuse of par, but in says the case was politically motivated and tens of thousands of people have rallied in cities across brazil, calling for the impeachment of president jeff burleson. arrow protest as are angered by his handling of the corona virus pandemic. nearly 600000 brazilians have died so far. they also say the president is undermining democracy. so those were the headlines and he's continues he and al jazeera after counting the cars station. thanks so much bye. for now, as the u. k, tries to move on from the pandemic. lorris john symbol set out plans to pay for the

damage done to the economy club with post corrected woes and opposition to plan benefit drugs. candler government offer reassurances of better times ahead lie coverage of the conservative quality conference on al jazeera. i . hi there, kimber. now this is counting the cost on al jazeera, your look at the well, the business and economics this week, under the merkel legacy germany's economy is the envy of the world. but its economic position is on the thresh, unprepared for the digital age. can the next leader of germany take on its challenges? lies and fabrications. a war of words is gain, make an epic as kicked off the apple app store. it all legal disputes have been settled. is apple abusing its monopoly power and a slow motion economic collapse,

international buyers, a shunning afghan businesses. firms is struggling to stay afloat, forcing them to lay off employees. ah, janet, those is that had their say, the social democrats won the most votes and now start the process of forming a government, ending 16 years of conservative lead rule on the anglo market. whatever the makeup of the new government, it has a huge task ahead leading the world's fort biggest economy. merkel oversaw a huge transformation of the economy once the sick man of europe, the country, whether the north atlantic financial crisis and the great recession better than its neighbors. for many germany is the envy of the world and export juggernauts with its well beating motor industry. and the lowest debt burden of any g 7 nation. and therein lies many of its problems. the auto industry for a long time dismissed tesla as

a niche and stubbornly pushed diesel. that was until the car makers admitted to cheating environmental tests. now tesla is worth $766000000000.00. that's more than twice as much as b and w daimler and volkswagen combined. as they spent billions of dollars rolling out electric cars, $215000.00 jobs could be lost because there's no need for complicated combustion engines. that's almost a quarter of the number of people employed directly by the auto industry. now that belated investment has been reflected in other areas of the economy, while it's research and development spending banks highly had spending on digitization artificial intelligence and broadband has a lot to be desired. in a ranking of the world's most innovative countries seen hair, germany props up the top 10 countries. but the auto industry has also enabled the country to record trade surpluses with other countries. and that hasn't gone unnoticed by trading partners. because that worse ins bear economic problems,

but it's germany's exports to china, which are causing the most concern, leaving the country, dependent on the communist country and unwilling to confront beijing's human rights abuses of all of this trade means the country doesn't need to turn to the financial markets to borrowed money to run the country. since the financial crisis, the country has implemented a law called the black 0 or a commitment to run a balanced budget. that's helped to keep its debt and check and has enabled berlin to respond to the pandemic with ease compared to its neighbors or germans a richer than their european neighbors. the country spending on infrastructure and green transformation is lagging behind many g 7 nations. let's discuss the challenges for the new chancellor. joining me is stephanie curts, research director at the kill institute for the world economy. i'd like to start by reading your quote, mr. coon's goldman sachs, as germany has fallen behind in the modernization of its economy. the deutsche bank

says germany is falling behind as a research and innovation power house. what are your thoughts on that? i will say this is only half true on if we look at or in the expenditure in the private sector in the corporate sector. there germany still holds a very strong position. also the professional education system is clearly earn an important pillar of the economy, which is still working very well. but, and here the 2 quotes are correct. there are some weaknesses. in particular, when we talk about the coverage of high speed internet access in particular and the mo bile sector, there is still a room for maneuver. but we also have to,

i have to say that the situation there is improving gradually, early, but it is improving. what impact has the black 0 role had? ah, do you think always keeping one eye on the budget deficit? the balanced budget sir, is not hindering germany. foreign or investing we have seen are almost record high levels of government investment being in line with the so called lex 0. it's a question of setting the right priorities. what is there actually expanding massively in germany? is our items are, are in the budget to which have a lot to do was they're spending for social on support of programs. we an aging population. therefore, the pension system absorbs more and more funds are. this is a problem, but her debt break or the blacks 0,

is not preventing the german government from investing more aggressively. if they wanted to has germany ground to dependent on its trade with china, and could it be hands strong? looking ahead as the u. s. looks to county china, how do you think that's going to play out? the situation becomes more and more difficult, or in particular, if we see something like a 2nd cold war between the united states and china. so it would be a huge problem for german exporters, but not only for exporters, but for corporates in general. because china today is already a very important production up of, for germany based or companies. and therefore, it would be extremely difficult. and if for german companies would face a situation where they have to decide between making business with the u. s. are

making business with china and therefore they will try to find a way to reconcile the one with the other. but the situation is becoming more difficult than it has been in the past. this is for sure. how do you say angela merkel? the legacy? how do you think she'll be reminded? it's a difficult question. no chance in a couple of seconds early. so to put it in nutshell, i would say that as a crisis managers, she did do quite a good job of bringing all parties around one table. but if you look at the fundamental decisions that have been taken, are there a lot of question marks remain in particular with her set up of the european monetary union, or which is still in very difficult conditions. also, the energy transformation of the economy arm was not successful and we

are still waiting for a pension reform beds urgently needed and it was clear that it is needed for many years. so very few important reforms were pushed truth during her government period of 16 years. so i would say the overall assessment is very, very mixed. ok, let's talk about the heroes on. ultimately it was marianna, are he who despite opposition from boone dis, bank. com fears and some would say alternately saved the euro. do you think that under merkel tacit support for been dis, banks opposition to bailing out greece might have led to the break up of the union had loud a voice is not prevailed. i would say that germany didn't play a very helpful role here because they try to keep them european monetary union

together at any cost and her by so doing they gave up important principles. and in particular, the principle that there should not be a debt union within the monetary union. but this is crucial for fiscal discipline are on the level of the the member states. and what we are currently or stir ring is there are the fiscal rules that had been adopted more or less neglected by every one. the smaller member countries are still sticking to it, but the large ones, in particular, france, italy, and others. and they are more or less ignoring these rules and turn it will be very, very difficult to come back to a situate or to, to come back to a set up of their

a euro area. where we are playing according to rules that everyone can agree to. i would say this is the fundamental problem of the euro zone, is that there is no consensus in monetary policy making. and actually angular miracle did not really say clearly what she wanted. she wanted to kind of manage the crisis somewhat, but to what she did is she kicked the can down the road without really solving their underlying problems. all. 1 right, hey, thank you very much. re analysis there, steven coast research director at the kill institute for the world economy. my pleasure. ah, afghanistan's business is a fighting for their survival international trying to staying way, and that's forcing firms to acts jobs. charles rakfish in cobble find out why

no of the ozzy sold land had a home in order to start off his pixar company 40 years ago. he says he has since invested half a $1000000.00 in the factory flows. afghan and foreign companies used to buy the close and scarves it makes, but business has virtually ground to a halt. in recent weeks, when the taliban took control of afghanistan in august, the u. s. froze nearly $10000000000.00 of afghan assets held abroad. and taliban leaders were forced to restrict cash withdrawals from local banks. but as okay, per car, the other valuable the taliban government has to re open the financial institutes mileage so people can withdraw enough money to buy materials for their businesses. hello. and the international community needs to soften their attitude. the stalemate badly affects every day afghan people, hardware of deal. carter is one of the factories. few employees who still comes to

work unpaid. he fought the soviet army when is invaded afghanistan in the 1980s. he never dreamed he would still be struggling to support his family. 40 years later, he says that he saw a tallow. kara, the country is in a terrible state. the security situation is improved, but there are no jobs. there's no happiness in life. no joy. the country is a mess. the factory employees around 30 women who work in a separate room from the men. some employees fled the country on evacuation flights . when the taliban took control. no ab shows me a video of men. he used to pay to collect wolf for him in the northern city of missouri sharif. and so ricardo for them right now around 80, people are employed at this factory. but as you can see, it's just down to day to a skeleton staff. and one of the big problems the companies facing is that one of his main overseas clients is refusing to buy the products at this company makes

because the taxes that this company will pay on the profits that it makes. now go to the new taliban government. foreign companies are nervous about dealing with the afghan business partners. that's because foreign governments won't recognize the taliban government, as some of its members are on terrorism and un sanctioned lists. 29 year old entrepreneur abdul raleigh, spend a $1000000.00 on what he says is the largest wolf spinning machine in afghanistan. he finally got it up and running 3 months ago, but was forced to suspend operations earlier this month. because foreign and local clients cancelled orders, and some investors fled the country with their cash i. and therefore, before i had big plans to buy more machinery, i am dedicated to my community. but the current situation is hopeless. all my employees are forced to sit at home because i cannot pay them no abscess. he wants

to help his workers, families, and build a new afghanistan for the time being. he and many afghan business owners like him have no choice but to put their dreams on hold. epic, the developer of the popular fortnight game has been blacklisted by apple. bert after epic took apple to court, accusing it of abusing it to app store monopoly. epic says apples charges for in app purchases are unfair. a judge largely cited with apple, but also in a partial wind for epic, allow developers to use their own app payment systems. apple charges 30 percent commission from developers like epa to use it's app store. in 2020, it made $55000000000.00. it stands to lose $3500000000.00 from the loss of in app payment services. which sounds like a lot, but is only 1.2 percent of apples, total revenue. but for many smaller app developers, it's

a matter of survival of to been kicked off. apples app store, tim sweeney, the seo of the epic games tweeted, this is another extraordinary anti competitive moved by apple. even after the court ruled against these allegations, sweeney has argued the reason for challenging apple was existential. because they wanted to create a met reverse. in simple terms, that is a platform for developers and users to earn more money for themselves. and with apple taking 30 percent that wasn't possible that met diverse in some games allows people in some of the most impoverished parts of the world to make a living. let's get some analysis on this now with peers hunting roles research, director of games at pear analysis. he twins me via skype from london. thank you very much for joining us here and counting the cost. so apple's decision to kick epic from it's ecosystem. is that an overreaction? hello, thanks very much for having me. i don't think so. i think come apples when it's

writes, obviously to stop at pick publishing fortnight onto its platform while the court case is going on. that's what it's position it's. it's laid out. oversee in the context of the consume, i'd love to see for note back on ios and actually i think i'm not sure we'll be waiting a huge amount of time before we see that. going back on the platform. okay, is tim sweeney. epic ceo right though. and calling apple saying apple has a monopoly? no, i don't think search, you know, it's really all related to market definition. so the judge laid out a market definition. and the market that aches examined in the court case is really looking at mobile games transactions as the market definition. and within that context, apple does not have

a monopoly has by apple's own data market around 55 percent share of the opportunity in that context. so it can't be described as a monopoly in that, in that way. epic was trying to convince the judge that the market definition was actually more narrow than that. but it didn't convince the judge in that argument. okay, what then do you make of the court decision and kind of gave a when to both sides that more in favor of apple overall seems pretty resounding defeat for pick really the judge. i don't think was that impressed by the arguments that put forward, certainly around the idea of apple having a monopoly. the one area of the apple was identified as being anti competitive. all was in terms of its anti steering activity. so within its app app store rules, it doesn't allow developers to actually tell the users

about where they can purchase outside of the app store ecosystem or about cheaper opportunities to do that. and the judge laid out a ruling that means that it wants apple to allow developers to do that. do you think other developers will challenge apple or develop their own app payment system? well, the routing so stipulates, apple must allow developers to be able to make use as aware potentially within the app about alternative payment mechanisms if they want to implement that. so i think some of the larger developers who already have a payment solutions outside of the app store. for example, we'll be able to roll out fairly easily. solar developers oversee, you know, we'll have to go through the process of building up the capability to do that. i

think the benefits are popular probably slightly exaggerated in terms of that, of, from the developers side because, you know, there's lots of things to think about. those additional costs are running your own payment mechanism outside of the app store. and also things like actually pushing users to use those other forms of payment mechanism. and that, you know, the idea that developers will do that by potentially reducing their prices. and that obviously has a knock on impact on the revenue streams in that next. obviously, developers are following this news very closely, but do you think apple uses are following this legal title the apple uses care? well, i think that's a good question because at pick really was trying to present this as not just a sort of industry focus case, but was also saying this is good for the consumer and oversee had this whole kind

of marketing effort to paint apple as the bad guy in the context of this court case, but i don't think the average consumer really cares about what's going on in this sort of legal ranking. i think actually when it comes down to abuse each of alternative payment mechanisms, if they are implemented, a lot of people will take the easy route and take this, you know, the, the safe route is what they're used to. so using apple's own in a purchase mechanism, so i don't, i don't think actually consumers that are interested in this or that, you know, your average mainstream consumers are interested in this or impacted by what's going on in the court case. okay, let's turn and talk about the meta versus sort of overarching term used to describe the future of the online world, i guess where it's not just socializing online,

but playing games online. assets online earning real money online. do you think that this decision by apple will impact that at all? i mean, tim sweeney seems to think that it will very much impact the future of play to earn games. yes i, i think there's, there's 2 elements to what i was trying to, to get to which was was alternative payment mechanism. but the other one which is perhaps more important in the context of met verse and plates. one games for example, is the ability to introduce other stores into the app store environment and all the ios environment and that this case failed on that front. and i think the sort of key tenant, really of play to earn experience is, is really the secondary markets. market place where use is the earn things within the game can go to those market places and convert that into real money,

real money in a way or other assets within the game. and i don't think this, this result is cool. case changes that in any way at the moment, so i don't think that there is a significant change in the landscape for those types of experiences on ios at the moment. i thank you very much for that pears, harding roles at an pair analysis. thank you. ban cogs, famous night life is part of the reason the city has been a top tourist destination in asia for years, but it's highlands government works on bringing international tourists back after the pandemic curfew is still in place, and bars are closed, it's got hydro has more from the ty capital, this network of alleys in pat pong, usually the vibrant center of bangkok, unique style of night. life now sits idle and dark. the shutters were pulled down on bars and entertainment. venues. in the weeks after the 1st cases of coven 19 in thailand and have stayed down for most of the 18 months that followed thanks to

shut downs and curfews. this part of chinatown is home to a community of trendy small specialty bars. not only do bar owners view the governments handling of their industry during the pandemic as a near death blow, but alcohol control laws pre dating the shut down, have also been working against them. i'm at his house on title. i am embarrassed about the situation. thailand is renowned for his great night life, many bars he received awards. why does in the government support the industry? i think these strange laws are supported by big business to maintain their monopoly . of voice is not loud like this. bar owners call the laws draconian in which alco sales are limited to set hours during the day. heavy taxes on imports and unequal laws only allowing large companies to brew beer and distill alcohol. a ban on alcohol, advertising and internet sales are so strictly enforced. bars refined for posting

videos of cocktail making and menus for drinks delivery. yet large bruise avoid the ban by advertising, mineral, water, and soda that bear the same logos as their alcohol products. here's an example of thailand's alcohol control laws. if i were to take a selfie hearing this far and shared on social media, i could be fined up to $1500.00 for indirectly advertising the brands of alcohol behind me. if i own the bar, i could be fined up to $15000.00 and possibly face a year in jail. alcohol control loss have been a contentious subject in thailand, historically, politically connected, conservative and religious groups have worked to keep them strict. an opposition member of parliament, a former bar owner himself, is working to change the laws and save smaller bars and trouble when really often again, and the toys come again there, there would file highlight is hobby up here to leave the for hansley. obviously, if not find any more, not yet some who support the alcohol laws say it's also about safety for visitors.

the new pump, i think to a safety should be up her eyes he. i think alcohol control is necessary. if we let the alcohol salus run free and do what it, what they want, things will get messy. adoptee. once thailand emerges from its locked down, curfews are lifted in the night. life is allowed to reopen. it's unclear if a return as it once was, or a watered down version. and that is our show for this week. she get in touch with us by treating me at kimberly, on teams the hash tag. see, to see when you do call, you can drop us an email telling the golf at al serra dot net is our address. that is my view on mine at al serra dot com slash ctc. that'll take you straight to our page, which has in time episodes for you to catch up on an answer to this edition of counting the cost. i'm kim vanelle. mounting. thanks for joining us. the news on out there is next. ah,

the whites to quote well representation, participation, democracy means that people have the right to choose their leaders and governments in free and fair election, and exploring why democracy has never been so flattened in so many parts of the world. a documentary series examines the biggest challenge is to democracy from those who undermined to those who are ready to die for right democracy maybe. coming soon on al jazeera ah allow government al jazeera where ever you with all this is one of the most astounding technological revolutions in all of history make our planner great. the day we have to meet the seo tool emission targets electrical meet mitchum in motion. they need to be mind to where people are just talking about wind and solar sake that's going to solve the problem. it won't,

the world of distance and commerce is driving the energy transition. each the promise of clean energy and illusion. the top side of green energy on al jazeera, ah thousands of women march across the united states in support of abortion rights. ah, hello, i'm darn jordan. this is al jazeera la you from dough are also coming up. president biden speaks out as a deadline to avoid a u. s. debt default approaches outgoing philippine president. rodrigo detaches says he's retiring from politics ahead of next year's elections, but not everyone is convinced.