road the initiative is a partnership between the world wildlife fund and the city of copenhagen, vertical walls of peers, as don't show a lot of complexity. and this is a bio hats can help in these bio had had stay it. they give space for kind of an niches where small fish can live that a good chance and etiquette. food like the other harbor projects and attempt to ensure locations that will comfort and in aquatic environment that can flourish. i'm a jim, jim and j 0. copenhagen. and a brazilian aquarium has been spreading some christmas chair, but with some bite, a divert the rio de janeiro aquarium has been dawning a santa claus costume while feeding the sharks and sting rays. he's been joined by mrs. claus and other christmas characters for the festive feed. ah,

i've a quick check of the top stories here. this out of the head of the world health organizations calling from limits to gatherings over the holiday period. he said there's evidence the on the constrain is more transmissible and can evade vaccines. all fours are seek off this pandemic all off. i want to spend time with friends and family. all are funds one to get back to normal. the fastest way to do this is for all of us leaders and individuals to make the difficult decisions that must be made to protect ourselves and others, but uneven cancelled is better than a life cancelled. it's better to conceal now and celebrate later than to celebrate to now and grieve. let us rebels from ethiopia, t gray region say they're withdrawing from northern territories. they've been

losing ground that i'm horror. and a far in recent weeks fighter say they're pulling out of those areas entirely to open the door to humanitarian aid. around 400000 people into gray are at risk of starvation. turkeys. lira has made a sharp recovery of the back of measures by the government to ease the currency crisis. president, russia typo on, announced a series of steps, including a promise to compensate savers. the losses incurred. the julia included its 1st day of deliberations in the trial of a former u. s. police officer involved in the shooting of a black motorist. kimberly potters pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. over the death of dante wright. she says she meant to use her taser, but drew had gotten instead and opened fire. so those were the headlines and he's continues here on al jazeera after counting. the cost statement comes to watch him back. now. musician performa, visionary teacher. ah, how's is there

a world meets the man bringing traditional arabic sounds to a whole new audience, being a woman and being american, playing with it already is something new from austin to palestine and landed. he's mad. he noticed the next generation of musical talent. simon shaheen. the musical jamie on al jazeera 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 letters m r n a. it is in many ways, the breakthrough technology of the pandemic, vaccines that teach ourselves how to trigger an 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 this week the philippines looks

at relaxing rules for foreign investors in the hope of boosting a post coven recovery, but it may not provide the bounce, the government's hoping for. and another set of letters to get your head around, nf t's just what is a non fungible token. why of a spot to rally in the crypto digital arch market. and does this latest investment price have legs? ah, so the past year it's been one of touchstone woods, hasn't it? virus pandemic locked down, flatten the curve, social distance, ingual, the sorts of things. i'll could be 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 sun and how credibly significant it is? not only have vaccines been created inside a year? don't forget that. but the technology behind the bio tech vaccine has the potential to be one of the biggest breakthroughs of modern times. it is called m r n a

messenger rabo nucleic acid and it's a game changer. let's start with the basics though, the traditional way to make a vaccines with a weekend or inactive virus that gets injected into us. trig is an immune response, produces antibodies, protects 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 that 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 ms. 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 expected in net,

i'm a share in $15000000000.00 worth the profits. you've got my donor as well, which uses m r n a. it, it's coded 19 vaccine. it expect sales of $18400000000.00 from it during his pipe. fine. 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 back it's m r n a vaccine has yet to be approved, and it was already part of a controversy involving speculation. the trumpet, ministration 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 only needed these smaller biotech companies to push this technology forward. my know, actually it's a commodity and such as commodities as the bun grows, you know that growing soon as a commodity, this technology generally a vaccine will take at least 8 to 10 years to develop. but the 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 optional to time spent so much nation as already gone. wow. to a degree in a good way that this technology cannot be used for the better good, the greater good to cruel 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 this 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 are 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 pharmaceutical starts because we still defies the stock hit the lot somewhere like $30.00 at the end of march 2020. then it went up to something like $40.00, but thought mcdonough that's listed on not stuck in. as we all know, the technology sector did tremendously well on this and on me, it found from $30.00 and march 2022 as high as 156. by the end of the yes, of course. that's where you put your money and haven't said that since the end of yet peaks, we half now seem somewhat of a drop off and

a consolidation and the shadow price. i guess if we had a time machine would go back and some of these markets, but we do sit look like that ship his salad, unless we have a bittersweet moment why these vaccines are not proven to be as effective. fingers crossed and touch would not get to that stage yet. well, thing as you've 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 pick up a 119 percent. excuse 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 hadn't heard of so much before. obviously, johnson and johnson at pfizer. well known for that huge market, capitalize capitalization of value, you know, got johnston. johnson got a market cup of someone like 420000000 faces. somebody like 200000000000. but there

are industry instances of these much more, less known companies that the one you just mentioned. and pharma is another one. that's one that seen a vaccine is to be a lot more effective hopefully than others. and we've seen the stock prices. so i think generally pharmaceutical companies with that 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 tech 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 n s a. i mean, there's 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 the tongue twisted. we have to remember that with this science and stuff it is penned i make. there is a sentimental edge is why i can logic which to 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 regulate just might be put back or some of 40 might be saying that we have to delay vaccinations that and age groups. we have to also take into account, but 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 firms in the industry can come to a container in effects of contention effect as well, that might be one risk that 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 access 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, right? that's an orgy. you know, you know, streaming devices from netflix is to the,

on the google the alphabets. but really what we saw as technology stokes. what about 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 yet, but there are 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 extremely wise and prospered and this environment is pharmaceuticals and it's technology. and i do think that we're gonna have a lot of these social distance measures or working remotely, or there's gonna be a staggered return to large scale events. and large scale governs so to say, i even the technology sector. yes, this property rights cost. but as 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. want it 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 re one to this time last year when the country, when it's locked down, 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 thinking 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 at 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. expensive usually fees. 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. are 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. be, are over selling it by no means like you are all simply opening up economy 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 philippines, 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 reno 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, n 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 whether the pandemic, even with the swift locked arms 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 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, anita sal. 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? did you said 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 region because of the previous experiences with with especially sars then i'm sure a some lessons learned next best practice that now day i did day are better able to prepare yet, and this is shown best, several countries in the region that day manage the at them make so far quite well, relatively speaking, of course, of course, for example, i said vietnam taiwan 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, yet 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, are readily, a, you know, in place like, you know, the simple, a hand washing social distancing, wet wearing mass, i think that's immediately being taken up. and 2nd is also the effect. if i identification a con, compact tre, saying, and then also a, you know, dead, a terrific, a 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 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 dodie cobbler bet them in the sense that we would it, we do do not one yet duty car for going back to the peak. a pandemic situation. so therefore as recovery that will lead to more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable. of course, we have to translate that yet. we have the trends that in more inclusive starting with a better health care assist them and then universal health coverage as one second. at the skill up the social protection system, which again many countries in the li didn't have not a that system in place. and also how to

a digit, the ly sia, then we learn a dis, digitalization is very important, especially for for example, for the infamous sector. the s m e 's to migrate the detailed 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 add that 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 wrapping 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, several countries 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 better able to provide to provide the fiscal stimulus need that because they have the fisk space. but since the pandemic crisis have been brought along, of course, yet that space is getting smaller and smaller and also the depth situation is also getting more worrying. so therefore, within the globe of framework, as we know, that is this initiative, the so called d. s. 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 depth situation. yes. so that's one for step. and 2nd, again,

we need to utilize more innovate this fiscal instrument, such as depth swap, agreement or arrangement and also but again, the basic basic, basic domestic resources mobilization is we need also those still implement that although may be in this situation is it is, is a proven to be a very challenging, i made it out. 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 1st of all. okay, this is a piece of art by the american artist mike winkleman. he goes by the name people. it's called every day's the 1st $5000.00 and days. it's sold at auction at christy's recently for $69300000.00 now out sells for

a lot for all sorts of reasons. but this is a piece of digital artist 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 and if tease or non fungible token. now if you know anything about cryptic currencies, you about block chain. this is along similar lines through an f t, the buyer can be certain of the orphan tricity of the art because it's all stored digitally on the block chain. like a digital record 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 a tweet. and where did all this man sat well back in 2011 with nie in cat, a mame, which sold the $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 a visiting research at the allen 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 as actually can as for the full as subjective personally, we might like ours 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 money. and i think for digital art, the interesting question to ask is, what is the value of for whom? so who is interested in, in digital art? and i'm going to just quickly, i'm sorry, because i want to pick up the point that 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 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. it's always on line. and this is extremely interesting for, for some people right to really care about the whole life its ability. so the 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, the salad, but also to talk. and i that saw to, to sell fractional 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. is it quite nice? shit? the moment i noticed that the person who bought the people piece of art was actually a crypt occurrence the 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 the line that's i don't think this is really very surprising quite. i mean, i've a new generation as asserted itself 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 out at the moment is that lend credibility to an f t, does it make them them more visible apart from the on the actual interface? 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 broader scope than, than 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's also the mainstream art, or it is taking notes and jumping recently had people say lots christy and we have

for coming sale. sotheby's by the artist buck. but to your question, i think an s t 's are very interesting for many more applications that will probably take a little bit more time to, to developed. it's very exciting. and if she's, there are 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 maybe into something that is financial. that becomes very language. very interesting stuff, dr. giovanni glove. it's joining us from amsterdam. thank you for your time. thank you very much. come on for your invitation, and that is, or this week, but i want to hear from you want to know what you think, what you want to say as well, sweeter d n. a. if you tweeting the hash tag as the female is more your thing, it's counting the cost down to the red dot net. and there's always more few online

accounts with the are a dot com slash cdc. that'll take you straight to our page with all our previous episodes for you to catch up on whenever you like. and is it for this edition of counting the cost time come all santa maria from the whole thing. thanks for joining us. the news now to 0, ah, african narratives from african perspectives now, but now we're about his big daily life book. short documentary by african filmmakers from the democratic republic of congo. and wanda, there was never going to be letting an obstacle just stand in front of you. that is what made the intimate connection between myself and rhonda diggers and merchants, and certainly africa direct on al jazeera. did you know you could watch out to see were english streaming live on like tv channels?

plus thousands of our programs. award winning documentaries, and in depth news reports. subscribe to you choose dot com forward slash al jazeera english. ah. hello. i'm darren jordan dough with a quick reminder of the top stories here on al jazeera, the u. s. a seen a 50 percent surgeon corona virus infections this month. and the american baron now accounts for nearly 3 quarters of all infections. new york state has reported 3 straight days of record cases, and a state of emergency has been declared in washington dc, ourselves allan fisher, this report from the us capital going lines for testing, growing numbers of those infected, growing concern where this is all heading in america across the country.