pauses we need to context together with our colleagues will continue to strive for a reasonable and not be emotional approach instead of a kindergarten fight between children when no one can stop them britain's prime minister has proposed a two year transition period after the u.k. leaves the european union in a speech delivered in florence in italy aimed at breaking the deadlock over breaks it to reason may said she wants britain to be allowed to stay in the e.u. single market during that time she promised that britain will honor its budget commitments the former general guide of the muslim brotherhood mohammed marked the arc of has died at the age of eighty nine his daughter made the announcement on social media archive spent several periods of his life in jail and was last arrested a day after the former egyptian president mohammed morsi was ousted from power in twenty thirty. rescuers in mexico a still pulling civil protests are being held in barcelona calling for an end to the government's position on a referendum on whether catalonia should gain independence from spain

a judge has ordered the release of six people who were arrested on wednesday. and those are the latest headlines here on al-jazeera stay with us counting the cost is next. germany is electing a new parliament poll suggests angela merkel is poised to win a fourth term as chancellor of europe's largest economy with crises in the e.u. and president trump in the white house some call merkel the leader of the free world but the voters here green watch al-jazeera as germany decides. this is counting the cost of al-jazeera a weekly look at the world of business and economics this week we'll look at the economic forces at play in germany as a new government takes shape. also this week whether catastrophes does climate

change mean that some assets are now uninsurable. plus as. europe's biggest discount airline flies into trouble with pilots and passengers as it cancels thousands of flights. germany today is the biggest economy in the eurozone and its growth outlook remains strong ahead of the september twenty fourth national election survey showed germans satisfied with the state of their economy however analysts warn that cracks are beginning to appear and if angela merkel is elected to a fourth term as german chancellor she'll have to deal with them more on those risks in just a moment but first here's barca with a look back at merkel's economic performance to date in steering europe's engine of growth. angela merkel weighed history when she became germany's first female chancellor mainak after forty eight years earlier with german city still in ruins after the defeat of the nazi regime the country's first post-war chancellor conrad

adenauer signed the treaty of rome that led to the creation of the european union european integration was designed to contain germany's power it would turn the country into the most powerful economy in europe your chance falling from the second world war and continuing with angle americal have had this trend where they want to protect german interests through the vehicle of the e.u. and focus on trade and also on kind of democratic liberal principles that you almost become the beacon of germany so-called economic miracle began under chancellor ludwig erhard he forged ties with the us a soviet russia tightened its grip on communist east germany. later chancellors willy brandt and helmut schmidt try to improve ties with east germany in the soviet union while supporting nato and the european community. as

the cold war thought the burning wall dividing west and east germany. merkel entered politics later joining the christian democrats she seemed became chancellor helmut kohl protege a woman and former east german she symbolized a new united country in two thousand and five she won a narrow victory over gary hart schroeder becoming chancellor of a grand coalition during her twelve years in office angela merkel has drawn some key lessons from her previous s. and she's remain flexible during the refugee crisis an open door policy has allowed the country to bolster its plummeting population and in the same way the previous transfers have tried to balance both eastern and western powers so she has struggled to overcome rival political impulses within her own country and abroad she has played a pivotal role in balancing western interests with those of putin's russia and increasingly confrontational turkey and the present. and heritage policy traditions

but she's maintained a very pro european policy and a sense that germany should talk to both east and west and try to find a peaceful solution when possible one of her biggest achievements is in balancing germany's national budget but the austerity measures that benefited europe's largest exporter have crippled others for many greeks she's a symbol of a divided europe however for those unnerved by donald trump's america first policy she's seen as the last defender of liberal western values and together with her allies she's wage war on euro skepticism and the hope of reinvigorating belief in the e.u. a union central to germany's place in the world. well there's no disputing germany's economic success story the country's central bank projects that this year's growth may be even stronger than the one point nine percent posted last year unemployment is at a post unification low of five point seven percent and the government's budget is

in surplus however the income gap between the richest and poorest germans is growing there's a call for greater investment in things like education and infrastructure demographics two are worried germany has the second oldest population in the world after japan then there's the issue of germany's place in the digital economy critics say that its lack of broadband infrastructure puts it in the slow lane and the car manufacturing industry is still embroiled in the fallout from a massive international scandal and the automotive industry itself is changing. joining us now from london is peter dixon peter is a senior economist with commerce bank in london peter great to have you with us on the program so germany today the biggest economy in the euro zone its economic outlook still strong however the income gap between the richest and poorest germans are growing experts are calling for greater investment in things like education and infrastructure it's there are clouds on the horizon out there all the certainly are

. they one of the things that germany has done very well over the course of the last decade and slightly longer actually has been to engage in a process of domestic restructuring but that has come at a cost of as you said widening income imbalances the those at the bottom end of the scale are all struggling to make ends meet i guess but nonetheless the average standard of standard of living in germany is significantly better than it is in a number of other european countries so we should perhaps be too critical but certainly this this problem of germany trying to go for what the the finance minister calls a black zero on public finances means that he's tried to balance the budget at the cost of investment and there are certainly many german economists out there who believe that germany is indeed under investing in infrastructure and education and

that the chinese noyo for a loosening of the purse strings what about that the digital economy germany is is lagging behind there to its infrastructure reliant upon the old fashioned copper wire and not a not fired i mean it's like i'm behind companies countries like latvia and mexico evening to to to what extent is that going to impact future economic performance well i mean if we don't see the investment then clearly it will mean that germany's economy is perhaps out of tune with what's happening in other parts of the world but i see. and you get the sense that this is a subject which is being taken very seriously by by german companies the digital economy automation the substitution of labor for robots in some industries is certainly very hard on the agenda it's something which which you know many german companies are at the forefront of anyway so i think we will over time see that germany begins to make more progress in the area in this area it's not as if

it's a total lie god certainly when compared to some of its larger industrialised peers obviously the likes of latvia who have invested very heavily in tech over the course of the past twenty years germany has had a slightly different economic base so it has a long way to catch up but i do think progress is being made there what about germany's automotive industry in a previous powerhouse an economic driver embroiled as it is still in the in the the emissions scandal at the diesel gate of course you've got competition now from electric vehicles being made elsewhere in the world is the industry going to going to remain strong as it always has or or is it going to have to go undergo seismic shifts. the signs are that the likes of volkswagen recognise the threats they have made significant investments in this area but obviously they lack the lag behind some of the market leaders in the field but of course what that that you and also makers have is scale so when they do get

a product which finally works they will be able to perhaps scale it up in a way that the likes of tesla will will struggle to do so i think that germany might be lacking behind at the moment but it's not always the first mover in this game which it which means the race so odd i wouldn't write them off just yet peter it's been really good to talk to you and counting the cost many thanks indeed for being with us today. now brace for impact europe's biggest budget airline ryanair is in the middle of what c.e.o. michael o'leary described as a significant management failure so what's going on the airline was forced to cancel forty eight flights a day for the next six weeks after admitting that it messed up the planning of pilots' annual leave at this week's a.g.m. o'leary said the pilots would be told to take three weeks leave now and have the other week in january ryanair also offered bonus payments to captains and first officers to forgo leave but now some pilots want to renegotiate their contracts

with the irish airline at a discussing the possibility of mass sick days thousands of passengers are unhappy the airline says that more than half the passengers affected by the mass cancellations have been rebooked on the alternative ryanair flights others were issued refunds the airline is likely to face a bill of at least twenty five million dollars a new study published by the world health organization says that people who fly regularly may be at risk of breathing contaminated air u.k. based airline easyjet is trying out a new air filtering system but denies that that's because crew and passengers are at risk caroline malone explains. if you get on a plane nearly any commercial flight events allow you to breathe normally the air pumped into the cabin includes bleed air that's being sucked in by the engines then compressed and finally circulated with the existing air inside the aircraft but sometimes that bleed air is contaminated remnants of engine fuel or liquids that

schools instance on major airlines including one in may when cabin crew became ill from the fumes while a study published in the public health journal says a low level leakage into the aircraft could be a problem particularly for pilots and crew who fly regularly a co-author of the report of four pilot herself with a master's degree in airline safety said more than one in ten of the pilots she studied to flew the be a one for six aircraft suffered chronic illnesses such as cancer your logical problems were fatal this problem is related to any across using bleeding supplied the engine but that aircraft had a lot more problems and the effects that they were getting were identical or consistent with what we would expect and what we've seen over and over again with exposure to these particular substances this is being going on five decades six decades in fact and the symptoms they were complaining about then at the same ones now. easyjet has just announced trials of a new ad filtration system that denies

a connection to so-called aero toxic syndrome the airline says it wants to identify and reduce incidents of unusual smells and fumes in the cabin these events can have short term effects on health and lead to flight disruption but it continues this has no link for this study whether any form of long term illness occurs in airline crew due to exposures to cabin air well earlier this year the european aviation safety agency also said in-flight measurements have been conducted on a number of commercial flights offer defining adequate and reliable air contaminants measurements methods for cockpit and passenger cabin air is the result show that cabin cockpit air quality is similar or better than what's observed in normal indoor environments no occupational exposure limits and guidelines exceeded . well despite the reassurances other people in the airline industry particularly those who become ill once more thorough research based on two thousand and fifteen numbers half a million could be exposed to the fume danger and so could three and

a half billion passengers who fly every year still to come on counting the cost will take a look at how an internet privacy is more protected in europe than in the u.s. . but first the value of norway's sovereign wealth fund has officially hit the trillion dollar milestone the rainy day fund was started twenty years ago to invest the country's oil revenue for future generations it takes all the money that the state receives from oil and invest it in assets abroad the mega-fun earns on average one point three percent of every listed company globally and norway's politicians are likely to find it hard to resist the temptation to raid the world's biggest state piggy bank. the u.s. central bank left borrowing costs on hold this week that wasn't the historic bit the fed confirmed that it would start unwinding its huge stimulus program which it created to combat the financial crisis it will start cutting its four point five

trillion dollars balance sheet from next month fed chair janet yellen said the process would be gradual but the move does mark a major change in policy in the world's largest economy at the end of quantitative easing china's borrowing costs could be going up slightly that's because standard and poor's has cut china's credit rating blaming rising debt levels and ratings to a plus from a minus it isn't a big move however the downgrade comes with just four weeks to go until the chinese communist party's national congress china's finance ministry criticized the move saying it was the wrong decision. now the professionals in charge of risk management the global reinsurance industry still trying to assess the likely costs of this year's extreme atlantic hurricane season the fear among some risk assessors is that climate change means some assets may become uninsurable in the future the risk is that extreme weather means claims will rise faster than expected and the

premiums won't be adequate to cover the shortfall in the insurance world that's known as the protection gap hurrican marias left behind widespread damage it had puerto rico as a category four storm causing widespread flooding and tidal surges and he gallagher reports now from the capital sana'a. puerto rico's southeast coast was the first to feel the effects of hurricane maria but the entire country is now dealing with the aftermath of one of the most powerful storms to ever hit this island with winds of two hundred fifty kilometers per hour puerto rico was pounded for most of wednesday in san juan hurricane force winds ripped off roofs and blew out windows power has now been lost across the entire island puerto rico's ailing electricity grid is still recovering from hurricane erma it could be months before it's restored and puerto rico on the sound one that we knew yesterday is no longer there so we have to reconstruct rebuild re-invented we have to be restored and we have to push on.

with our bodies with our hearts and when our so puerto rico has long been spared from a direct hit as hurricanes tend to veer either south or north of the island the last direct hit from a category four hurricane was decades ago the nearby u.s. virgin islands also took a direct hit with many residents leaving before marie arrived. figure out where i was going to stay in puerto rico and i think a lot of people were in the same boat i mean you had everybody leaving from the b.v.i. people leaving from the u.s. we i. but i'm going to be. widespread flooding is now a concern as are mudslides in the islands mountainous regions the governor of puerto rico has now put a curfew in place as a rescue and recovery operation is launched with little communication it's hard to assess the damage but it may be this island's coastal communities and rural communities that took the worst of the damage as hurricane maria leaves a path of destruction across puerto rico the recovery in this u.s.

territory already dealing with so many challenges could be a long one. joining us now from zurich is peter's a million peter is an expert in storms and hurricanes and heads the atmospheric perils department with zurich based reinsurance company swiss re what a great name for a department you'd be the man to ask then are weather related catastrophes on the increase right now thanks very much first of all for having me on the show yes this is a question that we are confronted with very often right now are these storms on the crease now. for one particular event it's always very difficult to say what is the contribution of any effects like global warming but one thing that we have. three important components sea surface temperatures then the humidity that is in the atmosphere and the sea levels and all of these three components are very important have played a big role in all these events that we've seen or on the rise at least what the

predictions say in a warmer world due to global warming ok now as far as your industry is concerned climate change mean that some assets are now becoming uninsurable how big is the the protection gaps that we're seeing right now i do not think that assets are becoming on insurable due to that i think there is enough to power capital available that can be utilized in order to protection protect these risks so the reason for a protection gap lies lies in other areas really have insurance companies like yours been preparing i mean obviously you must have been prepare i'm guessing for for climate change the impact of storms like the current atlanta system season we're seeing at the moment yes the war of course preparing is a very important part dr and it's really at the core of the business that we are doing so preparing means we need to have adequate capital we need to have enough

money to be prepared to pay out in case such even. it's happens that's very clear in terms of very short term preparations right now when these events are really unfolding obviously we contacted in close contact with our clients and their brokers and tried to reach out and see in what way we can support them peter given the climate changes is happening there's very little doubt that our scientists tell us that climate is changing is how is your industry changing and adapting we have to clearly keep very much aware of what science tells us how global warming will impact the frequency and also the intensity in particular of natural catastrophes and all the big green shores really do have that on their priority list in order to be aware and anticipate changes that are going to happen one thing to be aware of is that our industry operates very much on a yearly or maybe two or three year cycle where we renewed our contract so we do

have the capability to react fairly quickly to change that are happening but it's been really good to talk to your cousin because many thanks indeed for being with us thank you very much for having me. the growth of the digital economy has exposed consumers to an unprecedented level of risk regarding personal privacy it's an issue that's pitting the us against the european union and here's why our data is used to try to sell us stuff in the shape of personalized advertising it's how internet companies make money that is why so much of the internet is free to us users where the products are not the customer and data is a billion dollar industry the most significant pro previously developments are made in europe google and facebook currently face more restrictions in europe than in the u.s. the deal between the european union and the u.s. to protect e.u. citizens data when it's transferred across the pond is called the previously shield the e.u. is currently reviewing whether it's working properly and the e.u.

is bringing in a new data protection law next year the principle behind it being that every individual must provide permission for their personal data to be used companies like google will have two years to comply. christina arion is a senior researcher at the institute for information law at the university of amsterdam and here's what she had to say on the way that the law works at the moment the european union has a very advanced legal framework on data protection and for you also should consider that in today's personal data is really the essence of almost all economic activity that we need such protections to be robust and in place and. that in the european union data protection is a fundamental right is an extremely modern approach and has i think is the right answer to the challenges of the future of this personal data i think the law in

it's safe is of course under strain it's a phony issue to try to protect personal data in practice one of the issues is that personal data is not glued to one single place in the verge but to travel all around divert almost said to speed of light and the law cannot easily follow this is also vital european union. has made a new law to general data protection regulation this law will enter into force next year and made and it tries something new it tries to turn around the logic of the application after law to where data after user comes from so basically it shouldn't matter anymore if a provider is sitting in a country outside of the european union if this provider receives personal data from european union citizens. laws should also come and apply in this context and finally this week china has unveiled the world's fastest bullet train the food

chain it will travel up to three hundred fifty kilometers an hour and shave some thirty minutes off the journey time from beijing to shanghai but there are concerns about the cost of china's high speed rail ambitions as adrian brown reports. china's high speed rail ways are a potent symbol of its economy today the network has more than twenty thousand kilometers of track the largest in the world and it's all happened in less than a decade the link between beijing and shanghai is one of the busiest experts say the new service is about more than just the lure of speed or hunger for. the purpose of raising the speed is merely symbolic that drinking a run at a speed of three hundred fifty kilometers an hour the fastest in the world this implies the stress of chinese twenty. foot high speed trains are expensive to operate one international think tank estimates that it cost ninety percent more to

build lines for trains that reach three hundred fifty kilometers an hour than four ones that allow a speed of two hundred fifty but china's government is in a hurry to build more both in china and abroad. nobody predicted that the high speed rail between beijing and shanghai would be profitable when it was built but after a seven eight year development it gains so it can work in the west regions as well after ten years and. just six years ago there were questions over the future of the network after a high speed rail crash caused by a signalling failure killed forty people yet today train travel offers what flying in china simply doesn't and reliability in recent years flying in china has become characterized by lengthy delays and cancellations in two thousand and sixteen

a third of all flights failed to leave on time. it's been a year trumpeting china's technological achievements in may the country's first domestically manufactured wide body jet made its maiden flight. a few weeks before that its homemade craft carrier slipped into the sea for the first time and now once more china holds the title for the world's fastest passenger train. and that is our show for this week if you'd like to comment on anything that you've seen and follow and tweet me. on twitter use the hash tag when you do or you could drop us a line counting the cost that is addressed as always there's plenty more online at al-jazeera dot com slash. that takes you straight to our page there you'll find individual links event. catch up on but that is it for this edition of counting the cost i'm adrian finnigan from the whole team here in doha thanks for being with us the news. is next.

facing the realities of the airspace that they have blocked does not belong to them it belongs to the international community getting to the heart of the matter they can understand how the chinese leadership brought you as an enemy of the story here the story on talk to how does it at this time. tensions are

high little has changed and new village officials are struggling to demonstrate goodwill. among morial is trying for a comrade who sacrificed his life for the political change. but really event to unite or drive a wedge between the villages fractures part three of a six part series filmed over five years and china's democracy experiment at this time on al-jazeera al-jazeera .