to really not, not 2 in days with that question of being relevant or not, but producing music that in many ways can be timeless if needed, you know, ah, jazz is also popular at a mock, had been using cape town. but it's at venues like this one that jazz enthusiast say there's a renewed appreciation and support for the genre, which ultimately pays tribute to south africa's history. let me tamela o 0 cape town. ah, logan, i'm elizabeth rodman, door hall with the headlines on al jazeera corona, valez cases and hospital admissions. the u. s. are accelerating as the one to search continues. the number of infections is increased by 40 percent compared to last month, while the numbers in hospitals have risen by around 45 percent. experts predict the on the chrome variant will soon become the dominant strain there. a micron is

increasing rapidly and we expect it to become the dominant strain in the united states as it has and other countries. in the coming weeks, we've seen cases of oma crime among those who are both vaccinated and boosted. and we believe these cases are milder or is symptomatic because of vaccine protection. and fans has announced major public parties and fireworks will be banned on new year's eve. as corona vas infections continue to rise there. the country is reporting an average of $50000.00 new infections each day. the u. k. has seen a record number of cars 19 cases, the 3rd day in a row. more than $93000.00 infections were registered on friday. total case numbers nationwide have increased by about 39 percent in just a week. and avenue is more than 18000 soldiers in emergency personnel adjoining search and rescue efforts in the philippines, the country is cleaning up after typhoon rice. what the cross southern and central

regions on thursday killing at least 12 people more heavy rain and northern, evocative expected to hamper rescue efforts following flash floods. 12 people died in the deluge for the minneapolis police officer can potter has apologized in court for the fatal shooting of a 20 year old black man during the traffic stop. she's facing challenges of manslaughter for the death of dante wright. she claimed she meant to draw her taser instead of her gun. the united states says it's prepare to talk to russia about its demand to curb nato activity in eastern europe. moscow wants nato to limit new membership and restrict activities in former soviet countries. the u. s. is increasingly concerned by russia's military build up on the border with ukraine. those are the headlines on al jazeera, accounting. the call is coming up next from talk to al jazeera

while the army, as we listen, design is, are making serious separate and just drop the turn we need use making stormy. ah, hello, i'm come all santa maria. this is counting the costs on al jazeera, your weekly look at the world of business and economics this week, for letter m r. and it is in many ways. the breakthrough technology of the pandemic bank seems that teach our cell count a trigger and immune response. and ultimately protect us from infectious diseases. look at the companies behind the vaccines house who invests and whether you even should also dislike the philippines of relaxing rules for foreign investors in the hope of boosting. a posts covert recovery, but it may not provide the bound to the government hoping for another set of

letters to get your head around. and if team just what is a non refundable token, why? of a box or rally in the digital art market? and does this latest investment price have lake ah, in the past year, it's been one of touchstone woods, hasn't it? virus pandemic locked down, flatten the curve, social distance thing, all the sorts of things. arguably right now though, the word of the moment is vaccine. there is little doubt science has been our exit from this pandemic. but how often do you consider the science behind the science and hong credibly significant? it is not only have vaccines been created inside a year. don't forget that. but the technology behind the biotech vaccine has the potential to be one of the biggest breakthroughs of modern times. it is called m r n a messenger rival nuclear said, and it's a game changer. let's start with the basics though, the traditional way to make

a vaccine with a weakened or inactive virus that gets injected into us, triggers an immune response, produces antibodies protect us in case we get infected with the real thing. it's hugely successful. it saves 2 to 3000000 lives a year, m r n a. the does it differently? it teaches ourselves how to make a protein to trigger that immune response. and it's the kind of technology which opens the door to treatments of cancer, heart disease, even brain diseases like outside and parkinson's. now, i mentioned the company leading the way here by on tech. it was only founded 13 years ago in germany. it's been working on this m r n a technology for a decade or so. it also has various cancer trials underway by and take the vaccine part of a joint venture with pfizer, the 172 year old american multinational. and it's a partnership expect, isn't that a share in 15000000000 dollars with the profits? you've got my donor as well, which uses m r n a. it? it's coven, 19 vaccine. it expect sales of $18400000000.00 from it?

i don't. it's pipeline of drugs includes trial vaccines for the flu virus and h i, b, that's on top of all its work on cancer drugs. but for every success there is a struggle. for example, germany's cure vac it's m r n a vaccine has yet to be approved and it was already part of a controversy involving speculation. the trumpet administration had attempted to acquire the company even so britons black. so smith klein bought a 9 percent stake in cure back last july. so with all that, do we find ourselves with a bit of a dichotomy here? life saving life, changing technology for the good of humanity, but with a whole lot of money to be made as well or not just for the companies. we're going to talk to independent analysts jemila right about the joining us from london. jamila, this is so interesting. you've got joint ventures going on here for the most part and i thought to one to did big pharma kind of miss out. they always needed the smaller biotech companies to push this technology forward. no, actually it's

a commodity unit. stop and as commodities as the bun grows, you know that grow into it as a commodity. this technology, generally a vaccine will take at least 8 to 10 years to develop. but this technology, the specific cobra, taxing that some of these big pharmaceutical companies have used to develop the, the hopeful cule it showed that you can actually do this functional to time spent so much a nation has already gone. wow. to a degree in a good way that this technology can not be used for the better. good, great to good to truell many more illnesses that sadly cos multiple lives every year. and i think it's more enthusiasm now. not so much that big science has missed on this nugget, but that these big on the surgical companies can now adapt towards the new technology around that will hopefully help show lives after this terrible risk of the pandemic is over. and i wonder from hakes big farm or a little bit more palatable as well, because a lot of people have a lot of issues,

shall we say, with the money that big pharma makes and, and the profits that they make and how much they charge us for for the drugs, it's a very profitable industry. and again, if we had a time machine and you'd look back on what you would do exactly one year ago, let's say the end of march 2021. that's been done because really stockton globally globally locked as we can well, you would buy sanitizers mosque and you would purchase pharmaceuticals. totes because we still defies the stock. hit the lot somewhere like $30.00 at the end of march 2020. then we went up to $7040.00, but thought mcdonough that's listed on not stuck in. as we all know, the technology sector did tremendously well, which one is undone? if found from $30.00 and march 2022 is high, 156, by the end of the yes, of course. that's where you put your money in. have been said that since the end of year peaks, we half now seems somewhat drop off and a consolidation and the share prices. i guess if we had a time machine would go back and purchase these markets. but we do sit, look like that. ship is out unless we have

a bittersweet moment why the spec seems not proven to be as effective. fingers crossed and touch would not get to that stage yet. well thing as you started on the numbers, hey, we've got some of our own, which i might just bring up to show to our view as this is over a 12 month period. are looking at some different starts by an take up a 118 percent and that's gives me madonna, 305 percent again over the 12 months. q of actually even with the issues it had 65 percent. and then another one which i must admit, i hadn't heard huge man translate 63 percent. can you tell us a little bit about that? there's multiple brands in the pharmaceutical industry that really we haven't heard of so much before. obviously johnson and johnson of pfizer. well known for that huge market, capitalize capitalization of value, you know, got johnson. johnson got a market cup of someone like 420000000 faces. somebody like 200000000000, but there are industry instances of these more, more, less known companies that the one you just mentioned and firma is number one. that's one that seen a maximum to be

a lot more effective hopefully than of us. and we've seen the stock prices, so i think generally pharmaceutical companies, without any stocks, less well known or these big chimes dies. one of the sectors that performed tremendously wound up and done with the over one, obviously being like stokes and the technology sector. other than that, the doors have been close to the other sectors over the past one. yeah. i believe also it goes be, i mean we, we've been focusing on m r n a they've t r n a and it is so many fields here it is. is there something else we need to be keeping an eye on, or is it all sort of in the same under the same umbrella? no, that's the only difference is i think that we can consolidate those acronyms. there's so many different acronyms you just mentioned back when i'm struggling with a tongue twister, as we have to remember that with this science and stuff it is penned, i make, there is a sentiment. so i just wanna talk about your question. like for example, we saw the past couple of days on a lot of the controversy over the western seneca vaccine that does not use this technology. but because of that controversy why regulators might be pulled back or

some of 40 might be saying that we have the light vaccination, certain age groups. we have to also take into account that i can wait down on the whole medical sector as a whole, which is again another reason why these profitability and also the share prices of the specific from in that industry can come to a container in effects of contention effect as well, that might be one risk, then risk all of the other elements of thought paul, and i think that's something that we have to take into account the market as well. one industries become very, it's both, that's all the share prices. but as soon as we have some so consolidation of market and excess attracted to an investor to what are, what are the other ones? what are the other industries to keep an eye on that have? let's face it benefited from the pandemic. the tip of the tongue rather than archie . you know, you got your streaming devices from netflix is to the, on the google the alphabets. but really what we store is technology stokes. what with zoom, microsoft and so on. so many parts of this world economy and everyday life has been

cut off full. ready ready the overall majority of not all of us over the past one year. but there's certain things that we might have looked at as luxuries or stuff that we did in aspects. i'm like watching netflix, but it has become essential because it's been nothing else to do. so there's 2 sexes over what the act on extreme me, why and prospered in this environment is pharmaceuticals and it's technology. and i do think that we're gonna have a lot of these social distance measures are working remotely, or there's going to be a staggered return to life scale events and large scale i governs so to say, i do from the technology sector. yes, this property rights caused, but us do some gaps. hi, they can reach for the same time in the ceiling. while we say that necessity will always be the mother of invention. wanted to me last night in london. great to talk to you. thank you. thank you. for the philippines now where unfortunately, the economic picture is bleak, not 31 to this time. last year when the country went to lockdown,

unemployment had risen to a record high of 17.7 percent. and down off those highs now, but president rodrigo deter, taste as the economy is sinking deeper into debt, losing more than $800000000.00 every day. and on top of that inflation that it's highest and nearly 2 years as well. so well, congress is plan to open up the economy to more foreign own businesses. help reverse all of this. jamila alan dugan investigates from manila, aaron jeweler, sylvester known as e g says life has never been dis challenging. he owned a travel agency for 20 years, but it went bankrupt after the crew. and a virus pandemic broke out. he worked part time as a musician, but that too has now been put on hold for some of the luxuries we used to enjoy. we had to stop that 1st. ah course, we've also had to adjust our budget for food,

expansive utilities. we save whatever we can and spend only one with what we need. small and medium sized enterprises like the travel agency, e. g used to operate, accounted for around 60 percent of jobs in the country. but latest figures show more than 2 thirds of these businesses have been seriously affected or closed completely by the corona, virus pandemic reporting amendments. the certain economic provisions of the night. but congressional efforts to revive discussions about amending the constitution to relax its foreign ownership restrictions have not been welcomed with open arms. critic say the focus should instead be on providing relief to those suffering. in the current recession, we are over selling it by no means like you are all simply opening up the quote to me will not create an army of investments. quality of local governance is the most important factor for inflows,

offer for indirect investments and by quality of local in governance. this might include the rule of law, but what congress wants is to make economic laws much more competitive by allowing for an investment in public utilities. at the moment, that's restricted to filipinos citizens along with the right to own public land and natural resources. not because there are short term needs that we will forego working on the longer term solution i make. the pandemic was, you know, wake up call for us. it has become clear that longer term structural reforms. i needed the philippines implemented one of the longest and strictest locked down in the world last year in an attempt to stop the spread of the corona virus. but as in other countries, the economy has taken a battery, jamal alan dog and al jazeera manila. so it's not a pretty picture and really, aside from vietnam, they haven't been many,

southeast asian economies. they've managed to weather the pandemic, even with the swift locked downs a year ago. in fact, the united nations believes 89000000 people in the region have been pushed into poverty. a 140000000 jobs have been lost as measured by the loss of working hours. all told countries in the asia pacific spent $4.00 trillion dollars in response to the pandemic. and here's an interesting statistic as well past the tonic related diseases that is diseases which have made the jump from animal to human. have caused the region $200000000000.00 previously between $22010.00. so let's pick up on that with our guest or meter. so say alice giovanna, who is the united nations under secretary general for economic and social commission for asia and the pacific. and she's with us from bangkok today. thank you so much for your time. asia has experience here, doesn't it? it's dealt with murray. it's dealt with sars, it's dealt with h one n one. can we deduce that it should have been able to maybe deal with the coven 19

a bit better? or is this just on a different scale? yes, definitely. devon lake of it mind, dean is saying a much larger scale here than the previous. been them me. but several countries in the reagan because of the previous experiences with, with especially sars and then i'm sure a some lessons learned next. best practice that now day i did it, they are better able to prepare yet. and this is shown best, several countries in the region that day manage the and am make so far quite well and actively speaking. of course, of course, for example, i said vietnam tie one was another example as well. in fact, you would say those countries have done better than a loss of western developed countries. what did they get? right? yeah. again, because out of previous experiences then the early response. yeah. the fast,

early response include being in certain instances the initial locked down, but not only that yet, so that population have been better able, prepared than all this measures the health caution a measures are. i've read the lea a, you know, in place like, you know, the simple, a hand washing social distancing went wearing mass. i think that's immediately being taken up. and 2nd is also the effect if identification a con, compact tre, saying, and then also a, you know, dead, a therapist, the measures that follows. we are still very much in the middle of this pandemic, vaccinations still have a long way to go, but we always have to think about the recovery about coming out of this. and, and i think about the idea of an inclusive recovery, one which doesn't leave less developed countries behind. ah, and, and,

and, and collectively, brings every one to get a do you think that's a, that is possible and that countries are planning ahead for that? how do the counselor bet them in the sense that we would it, we do do not one yet duty car for going back to the peak upon that mix situation. so therefore as recovery that will lead to more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable. of course we have to translate that. yeah, we have to test that in more inclusive, starting with a better health care assist them. and then universal health coverage as one second at the skill app, the social protection system which again many countries in that he didn't have none of that system in place. and also how to i did get the lie. sia then we learn a dis digitalization is very important, especially for for example,

for the infamous sect that s m. e's to migrate the digital platform that will help a lot. not to mention the education sector, government and how to better a delivered to the public services social services to a debt population in need. right. and those are the sorts of things if we get those in place that will help, obviously mitigate any other crisis, which comes further down the track. in the more immediate term though, you've got issues with debt, you've got a lot of countries which are racking up debt at the moment. i'm wondering how they're going to deal with that avi development banks in the region on board with helping the mouse in the, in the, in the near term. our region 700 in the region are, are we're in the quite a better position if i can say that. so therefore, in the initial stage of ever, h ever, h adapted you divvy ratio is about 40 percent. every yes. so therefore,

many countries in the region, ah, we're bit better able to or wide to provide the fiscal stimulus need that because they have the fist it is. but since our dependent make crisis have been for a long of course. yeah. that space is getting smaller and smaller and also the depth situation is also getting more worrying. so therefore, within the global framework, as we know, that is this initiative did so called d as, as i said, depth suspension initiative, especially for the least developed countries. and now also a call to include the middle income countries, especially those countries that are vulnerable to the dep. situation. yes sir, that's when a 1st step. and 2nd, again, we need to utilize more a innovative ah, what is fiscal instrument,

such as dep swap agreement or arrange men and, and also but again, the basic basic year at the basic domestic resources mobilization is we need also to still implement that although may be in this situation is a, is, is a proven to be a very challenging i'll meet at. so say alice giovanna from the united nations in bangkok. thank you so much for your time. we do appreciate it. thank you very much . finally this week. well, something which i'm struggling with, quite frankly, want you to have a look at this. first of all. ok, this is a piece of art by the american artist mike winkleman. he goes by the name people. it is called every days the 1st $5000.00 days. it sold at auction at christie's recently for $69300000.00. now art sells for a lot for all sorts of reasons. but this is a piece of digital audits, not hanging in a gallery anywhere. it's a bunch of pixels and some one paid 70000000 bucks for it. allow me to attempt to

explain the technology behind the crypto artwork is called n if tease or non fungible tokens. now, if you know anything about crypt occurrences, you'll know about block chain. this is along similar lines are through and if t is a buyer can be certain of the authenticity of the art because it's all stored digitally on the block chain, like a digital recorder or a ledger if you like. but then what is art? is it a tweet because the malaysian ceo of the block chain service by $2900000.00 for the very 1st tweet posted by twitter chief executive jack dorsey 3000000 dollars. technically for tweet. and where did all this man sat well back in 2011 with nie and cat, a mame, which sold for $500000.00. well, i have questions, and i'm sure you do too. so let's put them to dr. giovanni equal of it's a who's assistant professor of digital humanities at the university of amsterdam, of visiting research at the allan cheering institute as well. it's nice to have you

with us, doctor, i've been a little bit tongue in cheek with my introduction today, mostly because of the extraordinary amounts of money involved. what i'd like you to do is to explain that. so for example, with the tweet, the $3000000.00 paid for the tweet, what does that invest to actually get for that money? that's very, very excellent question. pertains to what really is the value in buying digital art? and i think we should ask that question more in general. what is the value of buying art? i can as many value so actually can have for the full as subjective problem. personally, we might like art because of its beauty. but also art can provide visibility and reputation to its owner. and furthermore, art can be an investment. i can have, it can make value. and i think for digital arts, the, the interesting question to ask is, what is the value for whom?

so who is interested in digital art? and i'm going to just quickly, i'm sorry, because i want to pick up on the point that you've made of someone about about, about the value. it's like shares in the end, in a company it is, you know, they are worth what someone is willing to pay for them in this case. what does the invest to get for that money? yes indeed. well, i think exposure, this is very important. because digital arch is always on display, so country tool to find art, i mean it's not hanging someone living room fact, it's always on line. and this is extremely interesting for, for some people, right? they really care about the whole life. it's ability. so they're buying reputation and buy something that everybody can see. furthermore, i think digital art is also very liquid. and so country to traditional arts and fine art. it's going to be very easy for them to make it into something financial

to sell it, but also to tokenize it. so to, to sell fraction ownership of a digital token. and it's again in terms of at least short term economic value. it's very appealing alicia to a newer generation. okay, is it quite nice at the moment, i noticed that the person who bought the people piece of art was actually a crypt currency entrepreneur himself, i wouldn't say, saw, or minutes. there is indeed, new capitals coming in particular creek to capitals. these are not the only the only people interested in digital art by all means. but it seems to be the case, at least for the, for the most important sales. but i would also on the line that's, i don't think this is really very surprising, quite, i mean, i mean new generation as asserting so with distinct, artistic taste. so it seems to be the case here that we're witnessing newer generations and new capital. that is just buying what they can find fundable,

the amounts of money and the profile, which all of this has gone over at the moment is that lend credibility to an f t. 's. does it make them them more visible apart from the on the actual annotate? because i think that's probably the underlying story here, isn't it? what's a non fungible token, how that technology can be applied to any number of other things? yeah, this is really an excellent question because no fungible tokens really as much progress cope than the digital art. so in a sense, it is somewhat easy to start using them for collectibles. and, and indeed, what we are seeing is that also the mainstream artwork is taking notice. and jumping. recently had people say lat christie's and we have for kemi sale. sotheby's by the artist buck. but to your question, i think and the teeth are very interesting for many more applications that will

probably take a little bit more time to, to developed. it's very exciting and he sees the projects that are going to use and teach to tokenize money, including intellectual property, but even personal time and personal commitments. so it's really flexible technology that allow us to take something that is, that can be made rare and making into something that is financial that becomes bailing, which very interesting stuff dr. giovanni lovetts are joining us from amsterdam. thank you for your time. thank you very much. for your invitation, and that is this week, but i want to hear from you want to know what you think, what you want to say as well. so today i may come all a j if you trading the hashtags h i c t. the email is more your thing, its counting the cost down to the red dot net. and it's always more for you online at the or a dot com slash ctc that will take you straight to our page with all our previous episodes view to catch up on whenever you like. and is it for this edition of

counting the cost time? come out to maria from the whole thing. thanks for joining us. the news on out to 0, the if america held up a mirror to itself, what would it see in a sense, race is the story of america. what's working and what's not. lot of people were only talking about this. it wasn't at the top of the agenda if america can't handle multiple challenges on multiple france, we need to go back to school. the bottom line on al jazeera with, [000:00:00;00]

with, [000:00:00;00] ah, this is al jazeera ah, hello, so robin, you're watching the algebra news, our life, my headquarters here in doha, coming up in the next 60 minutes calls grew louder and britain for the government to impose more restrictions as coven 19 cases increase again. soldiers joined the