of a christian community in the region, the archaeologists believe the whole is from 2 ships wrecked by a storm of the coast of the holy land. they found hundreds of silver and bronze roman coins, as well as figurines, pottery vessels and iron work. at the time the ships went down, the area was known as caesar ear. it's here that the acts of the apostles describes peter baptizing the roman centurion, cornelius in an area. that was one of the earliest centers of christianity. bernard smith al jazeera. ah. these are the headlines on al jazeera u. s. health regulators of approved fives as pill to treat curve at 19 studies showed reduces severe symptoms by nearly 90 percent fall as the approval of a similar pill from merck in the u. k. is ross prime in this is welcome to plan for a 4th vaccine. meanwhile, 2 people older than 60. a panel of experts made the recommendation. it's expected

to get final approval from the health ministry in the coming days, nigerian for his i have been forced to destroy a 1000000 expired cove at 19 back themes. and already they were close to expiring and i went to live. it would have organization is warning, vaccine inequality is, will only prolong of us with no the global prairie to my speed, to support all countries to reach the 40 percent target as quickly as possible and the 70 percent target by the middle of this year. nor country come boost its way out of the pandemic and boosters cannot be seen as a ticket to go ahead with the planned celebrations without the need for other precautions. the un security councils agreed to a resolution to provide humanitarian aid in afghanistan. it said the support would not be in violation of sanctions against the taliban,

which now governs the country. i've got a sons facing food shortages that may trigger another refugee exodus in yemen. the world foods, a program, the u. s. well, food program is announced, it will have to reduce rations for 8000000 people due to lack of funding. the cutbacks will start from january. the country has been on the brink of famine since 2016 because of civil war rescue teams. and me and my are searching for the 70 people missing after a landslide. at a jade mine, it was swept into a lake in northern cut, in state authorities, at least one person has died. and the european union's taking legal action against poland over a court decision and violated one of the blocks key principles. earlier this year, poland constitutional court ruled that polish law takes precedence over e you little. but that you're up to date with the headlights counting. the cost is next. al jazeera world takes a road trip across spain. spanish, people love to tell you,

they are unwilling to come from it. and i am no exception. one woman's journey seeking her heritage. i'm covering you insights into christy spends of listen, i'm all region. it's a story that seems to have been her brush from history. in search of my groups 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 on 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,

that sit relaxing rules to foreign investors in the hope of boosting a post covered recovery. but it may not provide the bounce, the governments hoping for. and another set of letters to get your head around, nf t's just what is a non fungible token. why have they spot to rally in the crypto digital art market? and does this latest investment price have legs such the past year? it's been one of touchstone woods, hasn't it? virus pandemic locked down, flattened the curve, social distance, ingual 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 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 rider, nuclear 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 an 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 $2.00 to $3000000.00 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 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 share in 15000000000 dollars with 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. i don't as 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 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 always needed the smaller biotech companies to push this technology forward. my know, actually it's a commodity. stop and 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 this technology, the specific code with 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 cannot be used for the better. good, great, good to jewel, 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 i'm done

because 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 stocks and globally, globally, lot does come out. you would buy sanitizers mosque and europe purchase pharmaceutical starts because we saw 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 and have been said that since the end of year pigs we half now seems somewhat patrol for the consolidation and the share

prices. i guess if we had a time machine would go back and i'm a merge 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 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 medina, 305 percent again over the 12 month 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 of pfizer. well known for the huge market, capitalize capitalization of value, you know, got johnson jones 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 any stocks less well known or these big chimes dies, one of the sectors that performed tremendously watching the pin number with the over one. obviously be in tech stocks 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 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 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 so if it, if it is penned, i make there is a sense, um and so i just wanted i psychologic wedge 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 pulled back or some of 40 might be saying that we have the light, vaccinations that 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 effect 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 profitable, that's all the shop 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 right there, said archie, you know, you got your streaming devices from the netflix is to the,

on the goose the alphabets. but really what we saw as technology stokes. what about zoom out microsoft and so on. so many parts of this world economy and everyday life has been cut off full. 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 prosper 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 or working remotely, or there's going to be a staggered return to large scale events. and large scale governs so to say, i even the technology sector. yes is property run its course, but as do some gaps high they can reach for the same time in the ceiling. when 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 deterred, i says 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 planned to open up the economy to more foreign own businesses. help reverse all of this. jamila allan doug and 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 utilities. we save whatever we can and spend only one with what we mean. 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. critics 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 quantum.

you will not create an army of investments. quality of local governance is the most important factor for our inflows. offer for indirect investments and by quality of local in our 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 really 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 battering 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, anita. 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? 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 and 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 day 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, relatively 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, yet the fast, early response include being in certain instances the initial locked down. but not only that, dea zillow did population have been better able, prepared than all this measures the health, the caution a measures are, are readily 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 effective 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 edison. 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 everyone here. 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, if we do, do not one yet, do the 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 year. we have the trends that in more inclusive starting with a better health care assist them. and then universal health coverage. this one second. at the skill at 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 service, it's 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 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 them out in the, in the, in the near term. our he didn't ever come to us in the region are, are we're in the quite a better position if i can see that. so therefore in the initial stage of ever

h ever h adapted you, debbie ratio is about 40 percent. every yes. so therefore, many countries in the region are we're a 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, dep 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 i 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 an 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 1st of all. okay, 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 f t, 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 serviced 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 for $500000.00. well, i have questions,

and i'm sure you do too. so let's put them to talk to giovanni equal of it's a who's assistant professor of digital humanities at the university of amsterdam visiting research at the alan turing institute as well. it's nice to have you with us, doctor, i've been a little bit tongue and 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 actually get for that money? very, very excellent question pertains to what really 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 problem. personally, we might like art because of its beauty. but also ours can provide visibility and reputation to its owner. and furthermore, can be an investment. i can have economy volume 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 the point that you've made up 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 is very important because digital art is always on display. so country tool to find art, i mean it's not hanging someone living fact, it's always on line. and this is extremely interesting for, for some people right to 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 a fraction of ownership of a digital token. and this 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 notice 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 capital. it's coming in particular quick 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 did 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 valuable, 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 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 broader scope done than digital art. so in a sense, it is somewhat easy to start using them for collectibles. and indeed, what we are seeing is that also the mainstream artwork is taking notice and jumping . recently had people say las cruces and we have 4 comey sale sotheby's

by the artist back. 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 he's, there are projects that are going to use an s t 's to tokenize money, including intellectual property, but even personal time and personal commitments. so it's really a flexible technology that allow us to take something that is that can be made rare and making into something that is financial. that becomes bilingual very interesting stuff. dr. giovanni glove. it's a journalist 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, sweet or d n. a. if you're tweeting the hashtags h i, c t, the female more you're thing, it's counting the cost down to the red dot net. and there's always more few online

and the or dot com slash ctc. 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 out on to maria from the whole thing. thanks for joining us. the news on our 0 ah ah, african narrative from african perspectives now, but now we're about his big daily. why shift blue? short documentaries, by african filmmakers from democratic republic of congo. and wanda,

there was never going to be letting an obstacle just stand in front of you. euclidean. what made with intimate connection between myself is dwanda. dick is and matches, and secondly, africa direct on al jazeera. ah, a cheaper, faster way to treat coven 19 you struggle for his green lies an anti viral drug to treat early infections. nor country come boost its way out of the pond on me. for the global health spots has worn rich nations against sweeping booster program, saying they will only deepen vaccine in equity. ah, i'm come all santa maria here in doha. this is the world news from al.