birds the play? no, we're just me, nor can on this order man a, this was a repo was then for more know brown, a recovered heroine, attic. the culpability of opioid manufacturers is personal. he says he can't escape his own responsibility for past drug use. with that for many addiction is aided and abetted by the industry, ought to ignore very personal, very pros, cause almost of auburn prisoner of that war on mcnelty from that war. a war against addiction that plays out in the streets of every american city in cities around the globe. john henderson, l. g, 0, chicago, ah clair. again, i'm fully battle with the headlines on al jazeera. you an investigation says all sides in libya's conflicts have committed violations that may include war crimes,

the report details, accounts of murder, torture, enslavement and rape. it says, migraines and detainees suffrage. the most. ethiopia, as prime minister abbey made has been sworn in for a 2nd term, his facing some of the biggest challenges of his political career, including ethnic tensions and the months long conflict in the northern to gray, reaching you as trade chief catherine, ty is outlining washington's vision for ties with china, she says beijing has not respected his tre commitments and the terrorist, the tires will remain in place, but that they are some potential exemptions. our white house correspondent, kimberly hawkins, has more what the trade representative has said essentially is that much of the trade policy that was put in place under the trump administration is going to remain under the biden administration. and the reason why is because there are grave concerns that exist not just by the by did ministration, but also the global community about china's ongoing trade practices. what we know

is that the united states quote is now going to work to try and hold china to account, doing so by keeping in place those tariffs that were put against china, many of its industries under the trump administration. but it's also going to go a step further in trying to hold beijing accountable to its commitments. to don's government has warned the countries about to run out of medicine, fuel and wheat because of the closure of its main port protesters of ranch roads or on ports to don, protesting against for economic conditions in the region. facebook, instagram and the messaging service. what the pro set is, what sap all appear to have been hit by widespread outages, aged uses are taking to other forms or social media like twitter to report their frustration. facebook which owns instagram, and whatsapp says it's aware that some people are having trouble accessing the services. you update with headlines on al jazeera,

i'll have more news for you after counting the cost. ah and i, i, i, there, i'm given out. this is counting the cost on al jazeera. you will look at the well, the business and economics. this week, i'm going to merkel legacy germany's economy is the envy of the wealth, 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 as game 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. thumbs is struggling to stay afloat, forcing them to lay off employees. ah. and those who have had their se, the social democrats won the most votes, and now on the process of forming a government, ending 16 years of conservative lead role on the anglo market. whatever the makeup of the new government, it has a huge task ahead, leading the world's fort biggest economy. michael 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, an export juggernaut with its well beating motor industry. and the lowest debt

burden of a 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. m. 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 re thought to a development spending ranks 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 seem 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 concerned, leaving the country, dependent on the communist country and unwilling to confront beijing's human rights abuses. 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 a black 0 or a commitment to run a balanced budget. let's help to keep its debt and check and has a naval 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, by reading your quote, mr. coon's goldman sachs is germany has fallen behind in the modernization of its economy. the deutsche bank says germany is falling behind as a research and innovation powerhouse. what are your thoughts on that? i would say this is only half true on if we look at are in de 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 and access

in particular and the mo bile sector. there are 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 ro had r d? thank always keeping one eye on the budget deficit. the balanced budget sir, is not hindering germany. forum are investing, we have seen are almost record high levels of government investment to being in line with the so called lex 0. it's a question of setting the right priorities. what is, are actually expanding massively in germany is our items are, are in the budget. the rich have a lot to do was there's funding for social on support of programs. we an

aging population. therefore the pension system absorbs more and more funds. and 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. r n a, could it be hands strong? looking ahead, as the u. s. looks to counter china. how do you think that's going to play out? the situation becomes more and more difficult. 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 only. 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 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 bundis 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. in particular, the principle that there should not be a debt union with in 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 clients 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 filled abroad. and taliban leaders were forced to restrict cash withdrawals from local banks. but as okay, per car, that alibaba 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 clara. 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 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 whoo 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 in therefore, with her, i had big plans to buy more machinery, but 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 its 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 ceo 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 uses 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 add on pair analysis. he twins me via skype from london. thank you very much for joining us here on 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. c. o. right though. and calling apple saying apple has a monopoly? no, i don't think search. so 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 was

really looking at mobile games transactions as the market definition. and within that context, apple does not have a monopoly here has by apple's own data market around $0.55 a 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 things pretty resounding defeat for pick really the judge, i don't think was that impressed by the arguments they put would 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 ruling 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 the, 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 on text. 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 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 core 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 it 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 1st and plates. one games for example, is the ability to introduce other stores into the app store environment and all the iris 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 for uses and 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 aren't 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. all right, 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. in bonds 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 as predating the shut downs have also been working against them . i'm at his house on title. i am embarrassed by the situation. thailand is renowned for his great 9 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 there's 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 at the still alcohol. a ban on alcohol, advertising and internet sales are so strictly enforced. bars were fine for posting videos of cocktail making and menus for drinks delivery. yet large bruise avoid the band 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 us 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 would file highlight is hobby up here to leave the for honestly, obviously if not find any more not yet, some who support the alcohol laws say it's also about safety for visitors, new pump. i think to a safety should be up her eyes. he. i think alcohol control is necessary. if the let the alcohol sellers run free and do what it, what they want, things will get messy. 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 a shallow for this week to get in touch with us by treating me at kim valentine, the hash tag jacey to see when you do call, you can drop us an email. tell him to call us at algebra dot net is our address. but it's not for you online at al serra dot com slash c t c. 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 on kevin elf. mounting,

thanks for joining us. the news on l. g. there is next. ah ah! most people will never know what's beyond these doors. the deafening silence of $100000.00. how it feels to touch danger every day. most people will never know what it's like to work with. every breath is precious, with fear is not an option, but we're not. most people of tova was the iraqis. it take

to the home in a long overdue general election mass projects and political unrest around the country lead through an earlier them mandate a new election laws being put in place. and the government now deliver on a promise. they had an open process covering on a, did you ah, popular social media platforms, including facebook and what's up and down the outage is affecting billions of uses around the world. ah, you're watching al jazeera live from doha. i'm fully back. people also coming up. i didn't have human rights violations in libya, un report stays,

walk crimes were like he committed against civilians and micros, ethiopia, prime minister avia made his sore name.