Procession leaders accused of sedition former Vice President or anyone who says he was refused bail to stop him from running in the regions election later this month thats on the twenty first of december right those are the headlines on aljazeera do stay with us counting the cost is coming up next thank you very much for watching. News. But the message is simplistic and misinformation is rife listening to provides a critical counterpoint challenging Mainstream Media narrative at this time on aljazeera. Oh im has im sick of this is counting the cost on to your weekly look at the world of business and economics this week Oil Sweet Spot what price does a barrel of oil have to be so that consumers and producers benefit also this week bitcoins making headlines again but the biggest names in finance cant agree on what its worth plus african and European Union leaders have condemned the refugee slave trade in libya but still no real details on how to stop the smuggling. So what is the ideal price of a barrel of oil well thats something that opec and its allies had to think long and hard about this week in vienna but agreeing to keep a tight lid on crude oil supplies to boost prices involve some tough negotiations heres paul brennan. Question marks going into this opec meeting was whether russia would insist that the declaration of cooperation should be shorter should go from march maybe to the middle of next year in fact the message coming out of this meeting from opec and opec nations alike is one of reassurance what theyve done is effectively amend the declaration of corporation it wont start from march of next year it will actually start from the first of january theyve amended it so its a one Year Agreement that is intended to send a message of stability and reassurance to the markets its likely to have the desired effect i think as far as rumors going around here that russia was exerting perhaps over and june influence over the the negotiations and the considerations the president of opec was at pains to say there is no light between himself and his russian counterpart he said they stand shoulder to shoulder they are totally in alignment and the other thing to say is that opec has said that look i know that theyre going to keep this agreement in place through to the end of two thousand and eighteen but if the Market Conditions change there will be the capacity to be nimble about it the three driving factors he said in response to the markets over the next twelve months will bring the supply the demand and the inventor ease so joining us now from london is dr manish tech in a global oil and Energy Consultant thanks for being with us so we talk about an Oil Sweet Spot what do you what do you think it is that sweet spot for what is the best the idea of price right now for both Oil Producers and consumers well that is of course a very good question but there is no simple answer i wish i knew but ill pick and the oil industry in general through its history as always try to balance that. If the price is too high of course then they would become pretty true to oil and they would lose that the producers will lose market share and if the price is. Too low then they will be to watch demand and will be shortage of supply and this cycle has been repeated so many times and where we are now in the last two three years has been the cycle of excess supply because of technological improvements shade or and because of a god decided not to have any control but sense beginning of this year the producers are interesting lee has been countries the fourteen countries plus russia and few other non opec countries interest really joint forces and since the beginning of this year they have reduced their supply by about one point eight Million Barrels per day totally and although people had been the skeptics i mean observers were skeptic and negative read their outlook at the beginning i think they all agree in our dot servers and the city exists and information showed that this group and i know pick have been hurt if you view well disciplined and they have done what they had promised morris and so their prices have improved nevertheless some countries are more desperate than others to see higher prices because of their share of the state of their economies and their budgets and so on which ones would you say are are more desperate to see that. I think most Oil Producers are in the case of venues elaborate comes to my mind which is has a financial serious financial problem shortages of food and imports problems but that is partly political but in reality is the revenue of oil which has fallen in the last two three years which has put so much pressure on venezuela but then lets not forget the richest countries saudi arabia itself is also under stress because the saudi economic policies and its budgets and so on where based on the assumption of in two three years ago of eighty dollars are hundred dollars two hundred twenty dollars a barrel and then they get a fair to about forty or thirty dollars two years ago of course it has put pressure on mistress even under a rich country like saudi arabia and so i think i wouldnt say which one all of them are so what does all of this mean then for for consumers were going to see higher higher prices at the pump then whats going to be for the rest of us well on the crude price when we talk about the consumers there are two important aspects one is the price of crude in the International Market that we are talking about everyone knows but another one another factor is the taxation on Petroleum Products so we talk about the consumers people going taking their cars and to the petrol station to fill their tanks they are paying in some cases seventy percent eighty percent tax to their own governments in the United Kingdom in france and europe in japan there is a high taxation in United States is probably about thirty percent so i think that consumers so to speak would benefit when the price of crude comes down but not to the extent that the price has fallen you know hundred fifteen to about fifty sixty dollars no they are paying more taxes so as far as the final consumer is concerned in london for example the price hasnt gone down that much good to speak with you manage share tacking joining us there from london thank you youre welcome. All right still to come on counting the cost financial bubbles and speculation are nothing new well look at the psychology behind things like to look mania and ask if the current bitcoin craze is indeed a bubble waiting to burst. First on last weeks show we looked at how a modern day slave trade was operating in libya this week leaders there agreed to evacuate refugees and migrants facing abuse in detention camps the plan has been drawn up at a joint e. U. African union summit in ivory coast its not clear how the deal will be enforced but migrants are expected to be sent back mainly to their home countries the tatar butler reports from abidjan. The ministry issued for that and i worked on african and European Union leaders condemned the refugee slave trade in libya in their final statement they promised a task force to tackle traffickers and urgently repatriate anyone whos trapped there the fund that is on fire just on those there are women and children living in inhuman conditions we have agreed along with the e. U. And the un to set up a task force for repatriating at least three thousand eight hundred people the. Leaders say there are more than forty refugee camps in libya where people are bought and sold by those with little respect for human life. Well the leaders here have committed to helping refugees in libya there were very few details as to exactly how and when they will repair create them and they were also very very good about the new task force they say theyll put in place to combat people smuggling. There was also no mention of the french president s remarks to reporters that military action against traffickers is a possibility the u. N. Secretary general told summit leaders on wednesday that new ideas a needed to deal with migration including more legal ways to into europe is that something that you discussed and something which you wouldnt visit each you have to. Strengthen the growth of Legal Immigration but the same time we have to stop to get the illegal migration this is our. Common obligation youth workers say until young people have real opportunities little change we want next time African Leaders in rebel leaders to come together and say we are going to support two hundred five hundred one thousand youth start up both from africa and from europe and here are the resources that we put in place those are practical things to do is you know of telling us in the declaration that yes we are going to empower the end people but how are we going to empower the people theres no doubt that ending the slave trade is an urgent priority but unless gnostic solutions are found to persuade people to stop leaving home in the first place human rights abuses will continue to affect africas most fun robel thats been a roller coaster week for bitcoin which saw values soar past an all time high of eleven thousand dollars this week but then they dramatically reversed lower bitcoin and bubble are now two words the most people use when describing the crypto currency skeptics say its value has no relation to the real Financial Market or the economy because unbelievers say it is the future of finance well reynolds has more. But a year ago you could buy one bitcoin for about seven hundred thirty dollars in Currency Exchange sites online now the same bad coin is worth nearly ten thousand dollars why most likely it is because theres a lot of speculators that have seen the rapid price rise and bitcoin and decided that this would be a good gamble for them to get him there have been signs the financial world has become more accepting of the Virtual Currency japan has recognized it as an official method of payment and the Worlds LargestDerivatives Exchange operator c. M. E. Group plans to start offering Bitcoin Futures before yours and bitcoins market capitalization is now larger than giant reality based Companies Like walt disney and i. B. M. Investors have taken notice point base a Popular OnlineTrading Platform now has more than thirteen million users up more than three hundred thousand in the past week alone some Financial Experts see the rapid run up in bitcoins price as a classic symptom of economic delusion bitcoin as a speculative bubble the only question is when its going to burst and who is going to be left holding the bag in the end the people that are holding it will hold something that is worth nothing big going trading as historically been extremely volatile with the price spiking and crashing as it did in two thousand and thirteen and two thousand and fourteen and bitcoin has also been linked to crime as hackers narcotics sellers and child pornography peddlers prefer the anonymity it provides for illicit transactions. History has shown that every so often investors can get caught up in a bubble and asset bubble happens when Human Emotion takes over markets the belief that we are in a new era where the price of something can only move in one direction this is known as the wow factor in the higher the prices go the more convinced investors become that they will keep going up the bubble burst when investors are no longer willing to buy at the inflated price in a massive selloff sends it into a freefall and more recently there been two major bubbles the dot com boom and bust of the late one nine hundred ninety s. And the housing bubble in two thousand and seven to two thousand and eight or the first recorded speculative bubble happened in holland back in the sixteen hundred tonight mania crash horribly taking a lot of the dutch economy with it so joining us now from london is matthew nighty is a digital strategist and blogger thanks very much for being with us has a speculative nature of what were seeing with big coin and its price surge compare with previous bubbles. Well i think the difference is technology this is not just about people who have access to trading floors and markets in auctions its very easy for anybody to install an application a wallet on their phone and just put one or two pounds in and i think thats what is driving a large portion of its growth its not too dissimilar to a lottery where you go well you know im going to lose a pound worst Case Scenario if i dont get anything back from the lottery but the benefits hey you see that pound grow to two pounds three pounds you know if youve had money in there over twelve months ago youve seen a significant return on that investment and that compels you to say well maybe to put a little bit more in a little bit more and continue to see that investment grow the risk is of course that if there is a sudden run on those markets and people start to extract that bitcoin and convert it back into currency there isnt necessarily the security there to protect those investments so wheres that money going to be coming from the reality is you cant really buy any think with bitcoin at the moment you have to generally convert into another currency theyre obviously plenty of stories around dot dot markets and the run somewhere attacks that we saw a couple of months ago being exchange in in bitcoin in crypto currencies but the reality is the value is purely speculative and i think when that bubble burst vacancy a lot of people are losing a significant amount of investment i guess the difference is that youve had a volpe in the previous example but now its literally a Virtual Currency and thats i think personally another reason why i think this is such a growth curve that were saying its its just a number on a screen its relatively easy to see it on one bank balance having a ten dollar amount and then seeing it transferred to another screen its a little bit like playing with monopoly money so what do you think drives the psychology of investors when they look at the coin. I think there is. A desire to see a huge return on investment and they are seeing that theres a confirmation bias in effect that theyre seeing that growth. But i think what is fueling a large amount of the market is those investors who dont necessarily have the heritage who know how to read the markets to know how to balance that risk and it seems like a relatively easy investment with high rewards the reality is that the markets just arent normalizing we dont know where this is going to go the larger organizations the hedge funds the even governments you know the japanese government seem relatively supportive of cryptocurrency whereas china is fairly anti it theyre looking at the larger market not just bitcoin but cryptocurrency at large theres a big difference between the block chain the Actual Technology and the cryptography which sits behind this that enables these transfer Value Exchange and i think thats not going to work go away. On itself it does seem to be something which is extremely volatile but its very easy when youre seeing large numbers being reported in the press day on day about this huge dramatic growth you know we saw a thousand dollar increase in value in just the case of was kind of twelve twenty four hours so thats very easy to just jump on and go well ill have a little bit of that and see your value increase i think the biggest challenge is its very easy to buy portions of bitcoin but its relatively hard to get that money back out of the system again and whats this think of about because as well is it its an unregulated currency largely no one owns the Bitcoin Network its not tied to any government or country does that add to the uncertainty about its future or is that in fact what makes it attractive to many investors yes to both questions it certainly drives its on certainty and. Bitcoin itself is recently fort into two different versions of its own currency because of a disagreement within the Developer Community of who actually creates this software that allows it to to exist so yeah there is a huge amount of volatility volatility from the software itself the way that the market works from investors from people taking money out of that system but as you mentioned its deregulated its decentralized i think as far as crypto currency is concerned certainly the block chain we are set to see that only increase in its strength in its use across private market potentially nations looking at how they can use crypto currency in the block chain to create more secure and authentic transactions especially across borders thats one of the most powerful things around crypto currency is that the transfer across borders is so much easier than with currency so it has. Complete felicity in terms of a transfer mechanism but theres just not enough of a secure growth an understanding of how the patterns work yet for any kind of significant investors to say this is something which we want to put as a long Term Investment its just too risky and has many similarities to day trading at the moment good to speak with you Matthew Knight joining us from london thank you thank you i want to vest is called bitcoin a bubble they are not so dismissive of the Technology Behind it the idea underlying bitcoin is called block chain give you the power has more on this from hong kong. Hong kong has always positioned itself on the cutting edge as a financial industry which is why the buzzword at this annual conference is blocking and how the entire trading world can cash in on the technology but some warn it comes at a price it is posing new regulatory challenges but the speed with which technological changes are taking place are much higher than weve seen before and secondly new entrants new entrants which are in particular startups but also Big Tech Companies an example would be trying to contain the cryptocurrency phenomena in two thousand and nine bitcoin was the first to enter the scene using block change technology there are now hundreds of crypto currency that here credit problem lies they cannot be treated like cash the script a car jesus actually is open for future use and in most cases that you said you have to be defined so that created a lot of speculation making it a highly volatile investment for large gains and losses can be made very quickly for this reason and september Mainland China suspended the trading of crypto currency and banned the launch of new ones or initial calling offering forcing Companies Like this one to shut down their Trading Platforms across the board or its founder in greece new regulations are needed but such drastic actions are not necessary in hong kong. When youre blocking industry quite right now there at Rick Santorum is your background and we share actually similar speech to the regulators tell the rest of productions any Money Laundering top securities the Hong Kong Monetary authority has told arches there it will continue to support financial innovations in the industry and currently is unlikely to tighten regulations or follow chinas lead which is good news for the unprecedented numbers of fin tech entrepreneurs setting up in hong kong like matthew to come who has Just Launched a block Train Company they are playing the same regulation in all corners leaving china yet and we wont be able to train them to use it to currencies anymore but Look Technology not only about three to currencies and exchanges and so you can still use look transit knology for the field experts agree they say within two years block change technology will touch every aspect of our lives the transport banking insurance or just paying bills the city now has to find a way to control some of the risks that come with this new Technology Without slowing down its evolution and finally environmental groups have warned that the billion dollar all of all industry is in danger from italy to tunis lebanon to greece hotter summers and unpredictable winters have seen yields declined by as much as twenty percent is in just. Its a tradition almost this ancient as the civilizations that first settled these hills for thousands of years all of those have been hand picked across southern lebanon much like they are today the fruit is a staple in mediterranean kitchens and all of oil is a crucial ingredient. Lebanese farmers typically press oil at their own small batch facilities its a complex process that sees the all the fruit washed pitted ground into a paste and then pressed into a golden oil the family has been in the business for as long as anyone can remember he says you cant imagine doing anything else wasnt very going with it going on of all is very nutritious and has so many benefits even god spoke about it in one of the verses in the koran all of all it is medicine it is the greatest of all use. Modernization has made pressing all of us into oil less labor intensive and more lucrative but in recent years farmers have been struggling to keep up with demand all of Oil Production is becoming increasingly Risky Business across the mediterranean the land of birth according to environmentalist Climate Change is leading three precincts reporting. From Southern Europe to north africa to the levant hotter than average summers and cold winters have seen harvest shrink according to forecasters at the international of council mediterranean Oil Production has declined by around twenty percent when compared to averages from the decade between two thousand and two thousand and ten delivering a major setback to the billion dollar industry and as the region supply becomes increasingly unpredictable some boss players have started looking elsewhere for future sources of all of oil including california australia and new zealand something producers in lebanon say could destroy their ancient way of life. And we are very worried about the import of all of this on all of oil from abroad we must be able to export our own harvest i only hope our industry works to keep these markets open for us because our oil is of the best quality growing Global Demand for all of oil as a food and Health Product is also putting pressure on the mainly mediterranean base apply ors to produce even more but with all of harvest continuing to decline because of the regions changing climate its hard to see how theyll be able to do that so that is our show for this week you can get in touch with us by tweeting me at tasman sea and day is that. When you do or drop us an email account in a cost that is in a dot net is our address and its more few online at c. N. N. Dot com slash see that take it straight to our page which has individual reports links and entire episodes for you to catch up on thats it for this edition of counting the cost and has a secret from the whole team here thanks for joining us the news on aljazeera is next. December on aljazeera we look back at twenty seventeen through the eyes of five families who have been affected by some of the big stories of the year in an increasingly polarized world people in power sheds light on the darkest abuses of Authority Ten days of comprehensive coverage about Nuclear Arsenals around the globe and the impact they have on the diplomatic stage a special program dedicated to this years Nobel Peace Prize laureates i can and their pursuit of a Nuclear Weapon free world and we look ahead to the big stories that could dominate the headlines in twenty eighteen. December on aljazeera. You are making very pointed remarks where on line the main u. S. 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