williams huggins boldly going for no other living. sy, fi stars have gone actually into space. the 90 year old doctor became a science fiction icon when he played captain cook in the u. s. safe. i sous star trek is going to be joining 3 others on board of blue origin capsule, which is going to blast off from texas next week. shatner's going to become the oldest person to go into space so far. ah, this is audra 0. these are the top stories, facebook and it subsidiaries, instagram and what software now mostly back on line. after users were blocked for several hours. billions of people around the world have been affected, the companies apologized and says it does not believe any user data was compromised . facebook's chief technology officer had to use rival platform twitter to tell customers it was having technical difficulties. all this is coming as facebook is facing another crisis,

a former employee that has leaked documents that she says appear to show the firm putting profit before the safety of its users. it's also accused of ignoring warnings that instagram has an impact on the mental health of teenagers. versus hogan is scheduled to testify in the u. s. senate on tuesday. when we live in an information environment, it is full of angry hot, hateful polarizing content. inter rhodes, our civic trust, erodes our faith in each other, erodes our ability to want to care for each other. the version of facebook that exists today is terry and our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world. if he of his prime as her argument has been sworn in for a 2nd term, is described the election which was held in june as ethiopia as 1st attempt at a free and fair vote. but the polls were overshadowed by the conflict into grave where hundreds of thousands of people are facing possible famine. sedans government says it's about to run out of medicine,

fuel and wheat because the main ports been blocked by protests for over 2 weeks. demonstrators of closed roads around port to sedan to complain about a lack of political power and a poor economy. the pfizer vaccine reportedly gets 50 percent less effective in preventing covered 19 infections. after 6 months. data published in the influential lancet medical journal show a drop from 88 percent to 47 percent, but it's still shown to be up to 90 percent effective and preventing death. and the need for hospitalization. more oils hit the california coast and what's being called an environmental catastrophe. investigators are looking into whether to ship anchor striking a pipeline could have triggered the leak of the 5570000 liters of oil has spelled out environmental as say many pipelines i've been allowed to get into an unsafe state. and that's whole for no good bye. i will just the real world reveals dramatic pictures from goza in may. 2021. i lived there for

a number of years and it, there is nowhere safe. and god account done to his really missile attacks on for timer bulls. why we're tires from the families, businesses, and media organizations. simply blown up, goes a 60 minute warning. oh no, j 0 with hi there. i'm kimber. now this is counting the cost on al jazeera. you look at the, well, the business and economics this week on the la michael's legacy, germany's economy is the envy of the wealth. but it's economic position is on the thresh, unprepared for the digital age. and the next leader of germany take on its challenges,

lies and fabrications. a war of words is gain, make an epic is 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 with those who have had their se, the social democrats won the most votes and now start the process of forming a that ending 16 years of conservative lead role under anglo merkel, 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 juggernaut with its

world 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. 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 wanted to research and 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 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 for 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. all germans are 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 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? d. thank always keeping one eye on the budget deficit. the balanced budget sir, is not hindering germany form 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. the rich have a lot to do was ers and ink 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 have germany ground to dependent on its trade with china. and it 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 very important production hub or 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 a quite a good job of bringing all parties around one table. but if you look at the fundamental decisions that have been taken out 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 or so the energy transformation of the economy was not successful and we are still waiting for a pension reform this 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 angle, a 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. 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 thir, the member states. and what we are currently observing is, there are the fiscal rules that had been adopted are 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 her euro area. we are, 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 the 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. chance rakfish in cobble find out why no of leah's, he sold land, had a home in order to start off his text or company. 40 years ago. he says he has since invested half a $1000000.00 in the factory flows. afghan and foreign companies use to buy the clothes and scarves it makes, but business has virtually ground to a halt. in recent weeks. when the taliban to 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. oh wow. uh, bill carter is one of the factories, few employees who still comes to work unpaid. he fought the soviet army when his 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 at alone 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 whoo for him in the northern city of missouri sharif. and so we can't afford them right now. around 80. people are employed at this factory. but as you can see,

it's just down to day 2 skeletons staff. and one of the big problems the companies facing is that one of his main overseas clients is refusing to buy the products that 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 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 ob says 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 apples court, accusing it of abusing it to ab store monopoly. epic says apples charges for in app purchases are unfair. a judge largely sided with apple, but also in a partial when for epic, allow developers to use their own app payment systems. apple charges 30 percent commission from developers like ether to use its 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 spurt is only 1.2 percent of apples, total revenue. but for many smaller app developers, it's a matter of survival. after being kicked off apple's app store, tim sweeney, the seo of 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 as a platform for developers and uses to earn more money for themselves. and with apple taking 30 percent, that wasn't possible that met averse 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 i'm 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, oversee 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 so. actually. 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. it 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 win to both sides that more in favor of apple overall seems pretty resounding defeat. 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 are the developers will challenge apple or develop their own app payment system? well, the ruling set 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 data from the developer side because you know, there's lots of things to think about those additional costs to run 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 tassel? 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 easy route and take this, you know, the, the safe route is what they used to. so using apple zone 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 cool 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, it seems when he 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 experiences is really the secondary markets market place for uses. 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 coco's, 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. i thank you very much for that peers. harding roles at an pair analysis. thank you. band colleagues, 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 tie capital, this network of alleys and 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 downs 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 nie life. many bars he received awards. why does in the government support industry? i think these strange laws are supported by big business to maintain them. 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 at the still alcohol. a ban on alcohol, advertising and internet sales are so strictly enforced. bars were fined 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 share it 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 laws 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 friends. we 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 he let the alcohol salus run free and do what it, what they want. things will get messy about. 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, my tweaking me at kimberly l teams, the hash tag a j. 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 more for you online 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 kevin elf mounting,

thanks for joining us. the news on l. g there is next ah, of so, but it was the iraqis, it's a to the home in a long overdue general election math products and political unrest around the country led to 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, present coverage on a da 0. 0, for the congolese, but journey to work or means unimaginable hardship. i prefer to load interesting because i've got the captain tooth chancing life and live on a dangerous journey through the jungle. when i fell on to the rail, i nearly died about children, 8th go to school and live because of the prank. risking it all the democratic republic of congo on al jazeera part of the central missouri was on good luck. we

are the ones grappling the extra mile there are the media, don't go, we go there and we give them a chance to tell their story. ah, i'm all about this and i do have the top stories on al jazeera facebook has apologized for technical problems, the crush, the social media site, and it subsidiaries, instagram, and what's up for hours. it says it's good, no evidence user data was compromised. it's the latest headache for the company, which is also facing accusations from a whistleblower. osland jordan reports from washington, dc for 7 hours on monday for billions of face books. customers no likes, no insta moment. no world wide phone calls or messaging face books, cheap tech.