favorites this time, however, both little and no danger have chosen. he qu, you riding mates in the country, way ethnic voting blocks are important. i divided the q u votes, means the selection go either way. they are already claims and counterclaims up sabotage and avoid tricking more than a 1000 people died in the 2007 elections. what happens with kenny is your political significance? is that it just that that tension. oh, sort of begin stew to shake up beer. the stability of the, of the great hall of africa and the larger east africa. so that's what there's a lot of international organizations that are bestier. and so can, you will strategic or from a global perspective. and that's what the international community is looking at. business communities, muskogee just sitting on the edge of your seat, trying to figure out whether this is going to go peacefully or not. i liked some previous votes, they've been less pre election violence. kenyans generally have confidence in the

judiciary. many hope if the results are disputed candidacy will result the differences in court and not the st. parramatta al jazeera narrowly. ah, this is houses here and these are top stories. now the palestinian islamic jihad group tells us here that it will renew it's offensive against israel. if it doesn't release detainees. pie j spokesman colored apple hyatt says israel agreed to release to the top commanders under ceasefire deal broken by egypt. israel though, has denied agreeing to such terms. your natural side has the latest from garza, people are trying to gradually go on with their lives here in godsa. but to as the family is amori, ned, they're a lost ones. their beloved ones who they have lost in the past 3 days. also i want

to add that a 10 year old. c child just died of her when sustain in the air strikes in the past 3 days, bringing our the total to $45.00, kil, including 16 children. until now, we have ha funerals in different areas, islamic jihad is wold, in a large, maurice, 10 for the people who have been killed across the strip. in the past, the 3 days of air strikes is rarely forces have demolished palestinian homes during arrayed in the northern occupied west bank. bulldozers accompanied by, is really forces destroyed to houses. village of money mentioned in russia says it's ready to facilitate a visit by monitors, from the international atomic energy agency, to the zachary z, a power plot. but it, ukraine and russia have blamed each other for showing at the facility and causing

damage. a ship occurring at 12000 tons of corn from ukraine has docked in turkey. the ship left on a mosque 3 days ago. and taiwan has condemned china's decision to extend its military drills around the island in defiance of calls to end them. beijing conducted more anti submarine and naval operations. on monday, the exercises began when taiwan hosted us house, began nancy pelosi last week. and with you to end on sunday, those are the headlines. the news continues here on al jazeera, after counting the cost to stay with us. ah, i

. hello, i'm sammy's a than this is counting the costs and al jazeera, your weekly look at the world of business and economics. this week, running out of patience, chinese home buyers are halting payments on unfinished projects. well, the property sector crumble and how would that impact the economy? also this way, columbia has a new president and he wants to reset relations with neighboring venezuela. what would that mean for bilateral trade and russia intends to pull out of the international space station off the 2024? but can moscow afford its own project? what does that mean for space exploration? ah, i now real estate has been one of the biggest drivers of economic growth in china.

i counting for one 3rd of the countries, 18 trillion us dollar g, d p. but it's not just the broad economy that relies on it. households due to up to 70 percent of their wealth is tied up in the sector. but strict corona virus restrictions and the debt crisis among developers have slowed down the property market and halted construction on thousands of projects. homebuyers are now in short, frustrated. they're refusing to pay the mortgage on properties. they've bolts, the boy called involve more than $300.00 housing projects across more than 90 cities. it puts up to $350000000000.00 of payments at risk. more than 85 percent of chinese houses are sold through pre sale in which buyers have to start repaying their loans long before construction is complete. and declining sales, adding to the pressure on the property market,

china's top 100 developers sold their sales. hobbs in the 1st 6 months of this year . sales plunged almost 40 percent in july from the same period last year to the equivalent of more than $77000000000.00. they went down 28.6 percent from june, ending a 2 month recovery and month to month sales growth. s and p global rating agency expect china's property sales to drop by around 30 percent this year. that would be worse than in the 2008 financial crisis. the chinese government is stepping into rescue the real estate sector efforts include a grace period on mortgage payments, and the central bank back fun to lend financial support to developers. business is struggled to obtain financing and the last 2 years is badging cracked down on their line, some debt. well, joining us from singapore is raji biswas. he is the asia pacific chief economist,

that s and p global market intelligence. thanks for coming, roger. first of all, let's start with the courts. how serious are the mortgage boy called, how serious the thrice holiday? well i, i think their focus very much on property developers who have been facing difficulties and have delayed their projects. so it says certain subsection of total borrowers who have arranged contracts with property developers that are facing difficult circumstances. and often that's manifested in delays to projects. so it is a relatively small sub sector of the total number of borrowers. what's going wrong for developers if home buyers paying up front in advance of the completion of projects? i think one of the difficulties that has faced the industries that there's always been a subset of property developers that of that highly leverage. so even in normal times,

you do have some property developers in many countries around the world that face financial distress and effects the borrowers. but in this particular case, china's regulatory authorities back in 2020, wanted to reduce macroeconomic vulnerability to high leverage and the realist state sector. they were worried that could create financial stress in the system. and so to reduce that high leverage back in 2020, they introduced what was called 3 red logins. and that policy put limits on debt from property developers in relation to a number of metrics that were then looked very closely in terms of the company's cash flows, their total assets and also their capital levels. so after the introduction of those new regular sri policies that did put more constraints on real estate

developers. and so for those who are highly leverage right, difficulties with their balance sheets that created more financial stress. so i think some of the problems are, we're seeing are related to those efforts by the chinese regulatory authorities right now. in addition to red lines, they're now trying to put together a fund to try and help some of these over leveraged firms is not enough. or they're trying to walk, you know, balance between continuing to maintain their efforts to reduce leverage, which is an important crate number priority over the medium term and set out as a high priority, not only for real estate, but also more broadly for the corporate sector back in 2020 and also of course to try to manage the risk. now as occurring with some developers,

and that's been evident, even in the 2nd half of last year. it's the combination of those sort of 2 sides of the equation where they don't want to just, you know, provide huge amounts of stimulus and let problems again resurface. but on the other hand, they also don't want to create a crisis. so they're trying to manage the situation, particularly with the borrowers and mine, so the projects can be completed. and so i think that is the intent there is to ensure that they're doing the best they can to ensure the projects are somehow completed even through restructure arrangements. where other developers may have to play a role and also local authorities. i've also got the issue of mortgage defaults, right. what does that mean for banks? well again, because when we talk about the amount of loans at risk because of this situation,

it's a relatively small share of the total bank lending for the property market. so it's not right, well banks then, well, it's always a cern for banks. when you see ronnie seeing distress in certain segments of their loan books and in particular, it's not only about the borrowers facing risk, but it's very much about the developers as well. so it depends on the individual banks and how much exposure that they have to particular property developer. i think that's certainly an area of concern. but if we look at the total loan book of the banking system, the total number of mortgages that are at risk would be relatively small. and the big banks and china are vast summing there amongst the various banks in the world. so, you know, they have very large asset bases and they have the ability to deal with a certain amount of distress. so at the moment in the total picture of the overall

banking system in china, this does seem like a relatively small share of the total loans. however, one point to bear in mind is that if the price of property markets show significant declines, that does created different equation as in any other country. if you have full and prices in the property market, that increases potential distress. but at the moment, that's not the situation that's facing china. there's modern declines, and price is. now bill, everything that you said, and i'm wondering what's the bottom line here? what does it mean for those concerns, which we have heard about the possibility, the real estate crisis could drag down the entire economy which is already slang of those then those concerns then overblown. so i think when we look at the 2nd half of this year and also into the early part of next year,

the outlook for china certainly does face headwind. not only from the pandemic restrictions and the 0 current policy, but also some headwinds. now from the property, my residential construction is clearly slowing down quite significantly. all the metrics are showing not. and then also with the us and you slowing down export outlook. it's also going to be slowing down in the 2nd half as well. all right, thanks so much for sharing your analysis on that. reduce. thank you very much. colombia and venezuela have been political foes for years over a range of issues including an increase in the number of venezuela migrants crossing the country shad border. but the thought has a new left wing president and is promising to men ties with correct us now because of a petra was also announced plans to resume trade and reopen the often lawless border between the 2 nations. alexander on pierre reports from the border city of cook

luther. those still catalina morris, co owner of a bio degradable detergent company, and cooper proudly shows off her cleaning products. but when she's missing these days, our clients, economic hardships meant she had to let go of 21 of her 23 employees. she has only the resumption of trade with venezuela will save her philippines. okay. it is extremely important if not vital for us. i think this could offer us a lifeline. we could reach markets and clients again. it's a big opportunity and we need to take advantage of it. the border between colombian, venezuela has been closed to all but pedestrian since 2015. the neighbors severed relations. 3 years ago now left his president who stumbled it through his promising to normalize size and get goods moving again. annual trade was worth more than

$7000000000.00 us dollars back in 2008. last year it was just a 155000000 business leaders. hope that will change quickly. or we can regain the 120000 jobs. we lost in a short time in just a year. and we think this is an historic opportunity for the jew sticks, geography costs and agriculture. we could be the venezuelan pantry for food and raw materials. i mean, we've been victims of political fight last been bitter divisions among political foes, the left, the regional tatters. this is a bridge of 18 deep as a state of the art overpass with 3 lanes in each direction, warehouses, offices, and everything that's needed to facilitate trade between the 2 countries. it was completed back in 2016 at a cost of $36000000.00, but it has yet to enter into service. years of closure of also led to an increase in crime venezuela. businesses of resorted to buying colombian goods,

smuggled 3 legal crossings, raising costs and empowering criminal gangs. a sound like the 3 agents send that bruce man show as the few supply stuck in our warehouse waiting to cross legally. she says, restoring trade will take time as rules need to be re established by federal while england, it will have to be very gradual because we need to regain confidence before 2019 we had between 12 and 15, licensed public warehouses for international commerce under duty fries own, today we have none 0. but one thing everyone here agrees is that reopening the border is the 1st step to providing opportunities for both sides. allison, their m p a t t l jersey. coker right. joining us from georgia in the u. a. e is hire a local candle. he's the dean of the college of communication at the university of georgia and latin america. analysts good to have you with us. so hire to reopening

the border. of course, that's good news for people on both sides. but how easy is it going to be to get around some of the challenges to try talking procedural challenges and security issues and so on. it's going to be a big challenge for both sides, for one on the one hand, of course, less economy, although i've somehow recover a bit still still in 3 for most people hardly make ends meet. and the company, the company has a really hard time getting hard currency to pay off the on the other side. hello. yeah, i'm sure, with security, a lot of the guerrilla groups at the d, c, and d, e l. n. operate widely on the borders in between columbia and, and it's both in the north through the heat our region as well as in the south in

cuckoo. and so the guarantees that each government can give will be limited to their own ability to act on those very structural issues, which in both cases have been very difficult to deal with. how much do you think opening the border will be worth in terms of an increase in trade value? well, i can't really put out a number, but i can tell you that in the early 90 ninety's, when the president carlson repairs made a big effort to create a synergy with between both countries. beat includes went broke from half a $1000000000.00 a year to add nearly $5000000000.00 a year. so, you know, would that happen again? well, of course, not necessarily because in that time been, it's, well, it was a robust economy even though have a problem. we had lots of things to act along, the vice versa, there were, there were tom. so if you can ben,

it's well important out of the mark i will lake to both import and export programs for the north region in columbia. all those conditions are no longer there at the moment. i'm going to mention this, let me pick up an appointment that you mentioned. then off this though, i'll venezuelan goods companies. are they able to compete with the colombian counterparts or is an opening of the board? are going to lead to something of a routing of some faxes in the venezuelan economy. no, no, it's just the companies are not going to be able to compete in the moment the, the level, bureaucratic control from the central government, the obstacles, the uncertainty which is probably best the worst part makes it very difficult for companies to administer even to produce, to satisfy the demand in been as well, it felt lead loan to export. now some companies have been well on our exports,

like a pump beta rum. add some very control industry, the oil industry. but that's it. you know, we don't really have lost to export at the moment. so one thing, while columbia has developed a very diverse and strong industrial cap ability, we can overlook to ask the important question of how would reopening and reactivating the border was that mean for the migrant crisis, for the movement of people be open on the board? it doesn't mean a free pass for my ad. there's nothing in the leasing agreement that says that now ben is one of the can, can, can move without the proper documents. and the other thing is, and the post called the era columbia, there's a huge problem with on employment. so now the minutes are throwing competing with columbia. and so for specific jobs in certain areas and the informal economy,

which is already big enough in columbia, it doesn't make it that welcome, you know, that 6 receptive tube. and so that might also be economy. i don't think so. i don't think that we should expect the open in the bottom is that all the, all the immigrants will go through how long. remember the portion of the initial and do not stopping, but they both belong to the value in, in panama. and they're looking at walking or hiking all the way to the united state, which is the final the connection with many. so i don't think that we should expect mrs. i opening of the border will make it easier for the, for the but i'm my more secure what it can allow us in that depends on be the colombian government, on their style pedals is that they are the relapse the measures. so when it's, when am i can vote in or in a legal way what?

and i think that's, that's the necessary steps to take. now, i've been a great chat. thanks so much higher q the international space station is all through the bava for more than 2 decades, and it's been used to conduct thousands of scientific experiments. well, that was thanks to russia and the u. s. overlooking hostilities on earth, along with cooperation from canada, europe and japan, of course. but now the future of the i s. s. looks on certain russia announced that will withdraw from the station after 2024. if it follows through that could speed up the end of a project about cost, nasa around a $100000000000.00 over the last quarter of a century. moscow says it wants to build its own space station plans to cooperate with china's town gong. nasa has all the plans to it's funding 3 private companies to develop commercial space stations. the space foundation says the global space

economy grew last year, the fastest annual rate since 2014 hitting a record of almost $470000000000.00. total output by the world, governments and corporations in the fields of rocket satellites and others expanded by 9 percent year over year. the us remains the biggest spend with a $60000000000.00 space budget. that's almost quadruple china space. cash, which is the next largest spend private space investment, has seen a slow down this year. but at least 90 percent of more than a 1000 spacecraft launched in 2022 have been backed by commercial firms. well, joining us from the strasburg and francis cloud rousseau, he's the research director at northern sky research. good to have you with us. so 1st of all, is russia really going to pull out of the international space station?

well, at this point is, so a big question, apparently it has not been confirmed. there were mentions in the press that they would do so, and i believe that's probably a direct retaliation of the american position versus russia and the current warranty crane. or would it mean for the i assess if russia doesn't pull out? can nasa continue to operate on its own? well, on a technical basis, they will need to find a propulsion module to replace the russian modules that would be no longer operated. they could probably keep the russian miles that means probably by them, or they could find a commercial solution of their own. but that wouldn't have to be before 2030, which means another 8 years or 46 years, depending if the russian spot in 2024. so it is technically difficult. now, politically, will that be done by the other members? member states of the us. we don't know about that. now russia says it wants to

build its own space station, does have the money for that. and if that's what's been reported right now, it's probably using a lot of it's fund to go towards the war and ukraine. a building a space station is not a very small capital expenditure. it's a very big capital expenditures they've done it in the past. technically, we can certainly do it now. what will be happening for them is will they be able to divert money from the war effort to building a space station and rather quickly to replace their current capabilities that remains to be seen? the i assess was going to retire anyway, by 2030, wasn't it? what is the future of space exploration look like? how might you evolve with so many different plans on the table? well, actually this is good news. there are so many plans as you probably know, china also has a space station that it's building. now. if the russians go on their own,

there will be another space station and the partners of the current space base station if they all want to continue having some capabilities up in why would it be either good by themselves, so many different separate efforts instead of a joint one, well, these efforts will also require require funding and there's a lot of private funding that's going into those space stations now, which means less government expenditures for what is actually a very, very expensive infrastructure to put into space. and therefore, that will probably mean also more opportunities for science in space as well as probably more flights for astronauts to go into space, into the space stations and eventually space tourism, which is also a budding market for space stations. there's also been concerns all of these commercial plans, they're not going to be ready by the time the i s. s, retires. are those concerns well founded, somewhat founded well founded indeed, but the technology has moved so fast now that it takes the less testing and

assembly and less than protesting assembly or putting something together in space now. so that's good news. what is less good news as well? the inflation have an impact on the funding of those commercial space station. there may be a short term impact. space is fraught with delays, but eventually we believe that they will continue and they will have commercials when i'm in the short term. things are going to be, i don't know in space, free fall, no pun intended, not free fall. there will be bumps in the road, i would say rather. and those are going to be throughout the industry as you know, it's not just the space. it's also for other areas of activity, economic activity, but i think they will recover because this is a long term endeavor. and we've seen in the past the government has that to either subsidies or funding or enabling technologies. and we believe that that's going to

help them actually get over those bumps in the road. i. now i'm going to ask you to try and get out of that crystal ball and look ahead for us a little bit because last year the space economy grew, didn't it? do you think 2022 is going to be a bumpy a to called? well, it may be a flat year, maybe bumps in the road. indeed, but i think government as usual have always supplied enough subsidies or in italy enabling technologies to help grow the space economy. so i think that after this year we'll get back into a more positive outlook. all right, well, like a positive ending. so let's end on that night. thanks so much, claud. my pleasure. that's our show for this week, but remember, you can get in contact with our fire twitter, use the hash tag, ha, ctc. when you do or drop us an email, counting the cost, but i'll just 0 dot net is our address is more for you online at al jazeera dot com

slash ctc. that'll take you straight to our page, which has individual report links and entire episodes for you to catch up on that for this edition of counting the cost. i'm sammy se, down from the whole team here. thanks for joining us. and use an algebra is next. ah ah august about a year after the taliban took over a special coverage of the current situation in afghanistan. the listening post examines and dissects the wealth media. how they operate,

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