to run the journey through a land full of contradictions. joy and sadness. confidence and doubt. our documentary depicts the contrasts both every day life. and help people cope with. iran bittersweet. starts may second g.w. . this is due to other news asia coming up on the program full of ups and underpaid chinese office workers pushed back against working twelve hours a day but china was the richest man calls working nine am to nine pm to six days a week a blessing is a time for change plus a dangerous cocktail as files and fumes combined to create dangerous breeding

conditions in northern thailand. and how do you spot an old time in the thick jungle of borneo scientists say in the dog. i'm british. it's good to have you with us. working twelve hours a day through the week is a reality for many in asia i've lived through it myself but in china it's almost the norm mainly in tech companies working dynamic an i.b.m. six days a week is going to refer to as the nine nine six should feel some credited with helping china's tech startup scene grow in the early two thousand recently though jack ma so i was a richest man and father of one of the world's biggest e-commerce but ali baba

called it a huge blessing he said what does should consider it an honor rather than a burden and that set off a debate how much is too much and why should workers have to do unpaid overtime here's more on where this debate is going. to head to one of china's most renowned tech companies and as one of the country's richest men jack ma is an icon for many but recently in an internet company message he suggested that being able to work from nine am to nine pm six days a week was a huge blessing the comment sparked heated debate among chinese professionals. jody i don't hear that some companies need their workers to do overtime because overtime is the key to competitive we don't know now we see it but many young workers in beijing disagree so are you wishing you were working nine and six every

day makes your overtime longer than twenty or thirty hours it surely harms your body count before maturity and that everyone values work differently it comes down to the individual's choice for young people after many years they may think they had a unique work opportunity but they may also regret having sold themselves out. working over time is taken for granted in many chinese companies legally though a work week shouldn't be more than forty hours and for many young people that's important. and for more i'm joined in the studio now by didn't look at this pond and clear fed who spent more than a decade reporting in china and you saw the. first time gifted welcome now there's been a significant backlash to jack calling the nine thousand six was a huge blessing and there's even an online blacklist of sorts of companies that push their workers to work overtime why this backlash i think like in many situations that we've seen now it's a lot of his dance millennial to the younger generation that just isn't prepared to

behave the way that their parents' generation did and they don't want to spend all their time at work they won't work life balance and also as people get wealthier they want to have more leisure time so i think all these factors together have combined to see this backlash against. call for more work and there is also a question about the legality of this walk for the benefit of all of your other like to play a sound bite from a lawyer who's talking about the legality of this work. the much according to chinese labor law most employees are subject to standard working time which is no more than eight hours per day and no more than forty hours per week with at least one day off every week. they don't go to the nine one six working time violates the law in terms of both working time every day and every week a little more how that from those are going to find you couldn't tell a day that sounds ideal that's what the law says why is it always violated and i

think it's cultural for generations people have just worked hard in china it's a country that prides itself on working hard so i think that's one of the main reasons and a lot of it is that it's able to happen because we've seen such amazing growth in the chinese economy there's a requirement for people to work longer in many ways because they they need to meet these new targets in terms of dog of china entering a period of slower growth does that mean that it's a given that this walk over time an unpaid overtime out that will therefore have to cease to exist is that what's going to happen well ironically i think it could even lead to people working longer hours we've seen richard yo from j.d. dot com where. clock out of eleven sixteen pm on average. he's been calling for people to work harder because they need to make up numbers the economy is slowing and perhaps that's also part of the reason why jack ma made the comments when he did because they're also seen. growth is still very strong and ali baba but

the overall economy is slowing and they need people to work longer hours but surely this can't be sustainable if there's been many studies conducted in the united states primarily would serve but working continuously sustainably for. these long hours has a detrimental impact on productivity in the long run surely they must be aware of that in china i think they are i think there's an increasing awareness particularly again among the millennial as we mentioned earlier. it's not just about work life balance there's also efficiency issues that you know you just don't perform as well so i think that there is a growing awareness among the younger generation maybe jack ma who's always been seen as a pioneer maybe in this case he's representing an older generation that different going on thanks very much for expanding coming into this radio traffic going to thank you. it's been called the toxic for weeks northern thailand has been rated one of the most polluted regions in the wild the wost. of combined

with traditional practices to blanket the area in a deadly small. correspondent charlotte. province where thousands of people have been left for air and have plunged because of the pollution. it doesn't take long like this to turn into a rampant wildfire. that's something regional pretty tremseh know only too well this month in northern thailand saw some of the most devastating forest fires in years and the danger is not over yet and this is a new fire the trees are very dry here. massive areas of land bent to ash and the damage doesn't and that. this is what happens when you mix forest fire with heavy pollution it's being called a toxic hate lingering so i cannot creating

a dangerous cocktail. two weeks chiang rai has recorded some of the west quality in the. hitting the most vulnerable the hardest. eighty five year old man let jenks from penn has lived here all his life he and his wife say the pollution has never been this bad. i couldn't see clearly it made my eyes water they were really painful i'm afraid the small could get even worse and last even longer. pollution related health problems have surged health workers say they're struggling to cope yeah. it's really bad extremely bad i was not prepared for this but me sometimes even i can't breathe well and have to get medical help no matter what we do is just not enough. emergency services blame the wildfires on an unusually dry summer.

there's a fear here that the fires could become the norm forty's want to be ready this fire team doesn't want to be caught off guard again that building dozens of dams like this one across these mountains they stopping the fires from spreading and holding water to put them out people here are now just praying for the rainy season to hit and put an end to this toxic might minute but this year at least. we have two issues largest island next borneo a place long famed for its lush rain forest and abundant wildlife today however both born us jungle and animal kingdom are under attack mainly by the continued expansion of plantations barmore and is used in many everyday products from shampoos and detergents to cookies and chocolate and it's because of palm oil that

these heavy fellows behind me are especially under threat born years old ranjit and population has shrunk dramatically in recent years and continues to do so scientists and conservationists are now experimented with a novel way to track and monitor the critically endangered apes. somewhere underneath the thick canopy of borneo is rain forest orangutans i bring in the jungle foraging for food i'm swinging from tree to tree but every day this fewer of them the natural habitat is shrinking and becoming more dangerous. these are running times live in a sanctuary as so many other is they are all things and i'm able to survive in the wild it's this. land clearing and poaching are said to have wiped out half of the population since the start of the millennium. conservation groups say it's

paramount to accurately monitor their numbers and location but tracking the animals in the wild is like searching for a needle in a haystack. so how do you spot on a running time in the thick jungle of borneo a team of scientists says with drawings and imaging cameras. we've been working with the when it's dark so early mornings and early evenings we do that because if it's through the day the temperature of the forest is quite similar to the workers all of the body's own level so you call it tech warmed over the animals that well during the evening before school zone and detection did the difference becomes larger so detection goes up in the morning it's best because the forest at old it's to cool down lose its heat and then the animals really stand out and you can detect them very very well. so now it's an experiment but those who were

involved in the project say it has the potential to provide more exact information than the traditional method of monitoring orangutans until now numbers were estimated by counting the nests they build we've been extremely successful by with the check to erode things in their own. yes for various heights so we've learned a lot by those results. that technology isn't yet perfect sometimes other animals are caught on camera such as pygmy elephants. monkeys but the team says it's working on an algorithm that will help tell the species apart. conservationists hype that technology will play a significant part and painting a more accurate picture of borneo is endangered orangutan population. but it will take much more to stop that decline in the wild.

that story i'm on our website after double dot com forward slash asia and you can check this out on facebook as well. live it all with avengers mania in a few of the latest installment of the blockbuster movie franchise avengers endgame is out and banned in some places couldn't wait to get their hands on some tickets back there by the vision capital talk up with your next dive of by. staying up to date don't miss our highlights w. program online w dot com highlights. i think is everything challenging. i'm listening. to much different culture

between here and there so more challenging for. traditionalists i think it was worth it for me to come to germany. for grammar license to work as a swimming instructor. for now our two children one hundred votes just last tuesday and. your story take part sheriff in full migrants. fist shaking shareholders at buyers annual meeting putting the chemical conglomerate's board on the defensive the controversy surrounding buyer's biggest acquisition one sandal as shareholders convinced it was a bad decision. also on the show the belt and road summit in beijing presents an

opportunity for awhile way to put its best foot forward but many countries remain wary of the tech supplier. and we take you to the goriot in northern italy for the chinese has been investing for years before belton road even started. hello and welcome to visit asia and in berlin good to have you with us german chemical giant buyer it's facing its shareholders at the group's annual meeting today and so far it's been a turbulent encounter buyer share price has been cut nearly in how following the takeover of the us agricultural group. it's highly controversial weedkiller round up has put buyer in the crosshairs of environmentalists lawyers and now shareholders. the cat is out of the bag and buyers shareholders are furious so four to court cases have gone badly ruling that monsanto's roundup killer has caused concer with buyer no liable for tens of millions in compensation

the knock on effect has been devastating he said.