Days in california say theyve made some progress in their battle to contain multiple large wildfires raging across the southern part of the state the blazes have killed one person destroyed hundreds of buildings and forced two hundred thousand people to leave their homes but those were the headlines that hes continues here on the aljazeera after counting the cost of stage and done so much for that. We understand the differences. And the similarities of cultures across the world so no matter how you take it. Will bring in the news and current of the. Aljazeera. Is counting the cost on aljazeera your weekly look at the world of business and economics this week the g. C. C. The Gulf Cooperation Council the arab worlds only trading block isnt living up to its name and how pressing the pause button on Economic Cooperation is affecting this Oil Rich Region also this week Plastic Economy its profitable business but the true cost to our planet and health is staggering and it is quite literally washing up on our doorstep and its been twenty five years since the worlds first text message was sent and that is something to talk about given the way the humble s. M. S. Has evolved into an entire messaging industry. So when youre six months into a diplomatic crisis that splinted an entire geographical region an annual meeting of leaders from that region takes on extra significance when the Gulf Cooperation Council summit ended abruptly this week so too did any hopes of a breakthrough in the blocks biggest crisis in decades the meeting in kuwait city was the first since saudi arabia bahrain the u. A. E. And egypt cut their trade and diplomatic ties with qatar in june a period which as youll see in this Weeks Program has affected not just diplomatic ties but economic ones too more on that after this report from. While the announcement that this years Gulf Cooperation Council summit would go ahead as planned in kuwait came as a surprise to many it also brought renewed hope for a diplomatic breakthrough that might in the gulf crisis upon his arrival in kuwait on tuesday but that is a mere shift i mean been hammered acehnese issued a statement expressing sincere gratitude toward kuwaits emir. And his wishes for the success of the current summit stressing that the Current Situation in the region required the Councils Members to band together against all odds and challenges but even before the summit officially kicked off divisions were very much on display first the United Arab Emirates announced it had formed a new economic and military partnership with saudi arabia that would be separate from the g. C. C. Then saudi arabia the u. A. E. And bahamian decided not to send their respective leaders to kuwait it could be that it is embarrassing for some of the leadership of the country is the quartet work i think until he has to turn up. And therefore they sent a lower level but it could be that they really just wanted to have this. Just to show that the g. C. C. Actually still exists and the summit is going to take place but nothing else is going to have been which is a really disappointing in that case. In the end a summit that is usually slated for two days ended after only a few hours kuwaits emir said his country will continue mediating in the dispute or just so were going to should be you were in recent months of seeing a lot of troubles but the wisdom of my brothers of the leaders of the gulf countries managed to calm things down and now meeting today will lead us to continue playing the role that will live up to the aspirations of the people in order to have certain mechanisms to sort out disputes with guarantees that will allow everyone to abide by these rules. She added that the gulf has faced painful and negative development over the past six months due to the rift it six months to the day since the beginning of the blockade against qatar some here in kuwait say the fact that representatives of all member countries actually showed up means that this summit should ultimately be considered a success others however say that todays developments call into question if the g. C. C. And institution which at its core is meant to highlight regional unity will be able to survive much longer now that regional unity mohamed talks about it comes over time through cooperation on a few Different Levels the g. C. C. Charter was actually signed thirty six years ago by six or oil rich mana keys in the gulf kuwait oman qatar saudi arabia and the United Arab Emirates its stated aim is to be a political and Economic Alliance remember the g. C. C. Countries possess almost half the worlds oil reserves and all are currently putting reforms in place to wean their economies all for oil in the future but plans for greater cooperation havent amounted to much although all countries peg their currencies to the dollar back in two thousand and nine there was talk of a Monetary Union but a man in the u. A. E. Didnt want to part of it and the blockade of qatar is put a stop to free trade within the bloc putting the future of Free Movement trade and capital across the g. C. C. In doubts there is also a plan to generate new sources of revenue that includes a five percent value added tax but again it was supposed to be across the g. C. C. That could now also be shelved so lets talk about all this now with him come out he is the head of middle east and north africa at the geopolitical Risk ConsultingFirm Eurasia Group and its nice to have you with us i mean the g. C. C. The Gulf Cooperation Council cooperation being the operative word i think is that basically just in name only now. I think virtually we have an Oil Organization that is able to do very little there is no consensus on the major issues not on Foreign Policy not in it on economics i think you will remain there in name but the fact of mess has gone down to almost zero and is that just a result of the blockade on gaza these last six months of qatar crisis and tensions between saudi arabia the u. A. E. And bahrain on one cap and qatar on the other really has created the First Step Towards partial descent to integration of the union i think that we still have it there but i dont think that youre going to hear any headlines on cooperation or any strategy from the g. C. C. Anymore if we strip out the consequences for a moment lets just talk about the fundamentals of the g. C. C. Economies oil obviously its all about oil but the countries did seem to understand yes we need to diversify we might need to bring in a value added tax or some sort of thing with the do you think these things were really going to happen that it was commitment to these sorts of ideas. I think there was serious commitment towards at least having some form of fiscal rebalancing process across the g. C. C. That really maintained the balance between the gulf economy is so that was definitely moving forward as with everything in the region i think we have to expect that there are some delays some structural problems the states have not really introduce any form of complicated taxation for a very long time so we were bound to really confront difficulties i think at this stage we get a very different approach i think we get a state centric approach and some states move forward quite quickly with some of these reforms others feel more compelled to put them on the sideline i think it within in the katara case we were probably see some delays the cuts our economy has its own set of challenges because of the economic crisis because of the political crisis with the g. C. C. So it would be more prudent i think to delay that and i think thats a likely direction what were or what our Growth Prospects like for the other countries in the gulf given as a seed oil is a big factor in oil is still you know fifty sixty dollars a barrel. Mark which is not what they want they want more of the asli we have a new structure where oil prices cannot support the growth levels that weve seen in the past that were looking at two to three percent growth in most of the countries perhaps lower if theres a dip in oil prices but the days of much higher growth are gone and there are they will probably not come back i am kind of a pleasure talking to you thank you for joining us and counting the cost. Now late in the week we finally saw some tangible movement in the brags that negotiations between the United Kingdom and the European Union at this stage it was about the socalled divorce which would allow briggs that talks to move to the next stage pending a vote in the European Parliament and deals were reached on a number of crucial sticking points most notably what will be the only land border between them the one that separates european ireland from the u. K. s Northern Ireland and the end result there will be no hard border between the two the e. U. Had insisted discussions could not move ahead until plans for the border were finalized and so the british Prime Minister to resign may have been locked in intensive talks with her Coalition Partners from Northern Ireland the Democratic Unionist Party after they vetoed an earlier version of the deal. After some tough conversations weve now agreed a settlement that is fair to the british taxpayer it means that in future we will be able to invest more in our priorities such as housing schools and the n. H. S. In Northern Ireland we will guarantee there will be no hard border and we will uphold the belfast agreement and in doing so we will continue to pursue the constitutional and economic integrity of the United Kingdom and still to come on counting the cost weve heard of conflict diamonds but what about Peace Diamonds look at how the industry itself is changing and how one of the largest diamonds ever discovered is helping. First one of the biggest deals in the t. V. And Film Industry could be taking shape several sources say that twenty First Century fox and disney the Worlds LargestEntertainment Company are in advanced talks over the sale of many of foxs entertainment assets what does all that mean well more and more people are relying on the internet of course for access to things like streaming video disney itself is planning on launching its own streaming service in twenty nineteen and this room and sixty billion dollar deal with fox could give it access to some big franchises things like x. Men and fantastic four and well have more on how the streaming industry is changing the media landscape on next weeks show and our special focus on streaming wars now to one of the biggest corporate Corruption Cases in history in the name is brecht this Brazilian Construction Company became an International Giant through the years by using bribery and corruption to secure around one hundred projects in twelve Different Countries now after brazil peru has been the country with the most arrests related to the other great scandal as Mariana Sanchez reports now from lima. All of it has been working in day two since one thousand nine hundred seventy nine the carwash investigation in brazil says only rich financed all candidates who had a chance to be. President s a Congressional Commission has been investigating president kaczynski for allegedly receiving bribes for his president ial campaigns in two thousand and eleven and two thousand and sixteen and the president denies any wrongdoing. Or that it is him please collaborating with brazilian prosecutors have only revealed two major corruption scandals related to be two but analysts say the construction giant got so many public contracts here there was much more to come. The European Union has named and shamed seventeen countries in its first ever tax haven blacklist it includes south korea mongolia namibia panama trinidad and tobago behind and the United Arab Emirates a list follow the leaking of the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers as well which revealed how companies and individuals hid their wealth from tax or thorazine but alex carbon the chief executive of the International TaxJustice Network doesnt believe the was judged all countries on the list fairly new in the same way that the. Operate is much better at looking at more members than looking at it but even with that constraint couldve played a level Playing Field to everyone else and instead what is done really is picked on the smaller weaker states now this week the worlds top Decision Making body on the environment that is the Un Environment Assembly passed a resolution on zero tolerance to plastic pollution in the ocean sounds good but unfortunately its nonbinding so the onus really falls on all of us to make it happen because in the words of the un environment executive director quote were facing an ocean armageddon happened so we have the details now from the summit in nairobi several resolutions were adopted in this one including the resolution on plastic pollution that called for among other things up more power. Afford and this meant a committee of experts to look into the gaps and regulations and come up with the free walk and also setting up mechanisms morning tearing mechanisms to measure what how much plastic is out there how much is being dumped and all this after intense negotiations and producing through evidence that has been presented by sam to stand environmentalists from across the world now this love affair we have with plastic really is talks like in fact we have produced as much plastic in the past decade as we did in the entire Twentieth Century and its reached a point where we are literally drowning in it it is carpeting the oceans it is choking on marine life and soon whatever wild caught fish you will contain plastic as well we will look more at the Plastic Economy in just a moment but first here is money on the hand but the numbers. Five trillion pieces of plastic in our oceans more than a million plastic bags used every minute millions trillions for many of us these are huge numbers difficult to comprehend well heres an idea of just how big the problem has become for our planet eight million tons of plastic ends up in our oceans every year most of it used just the once and then thrown away thats the equivalent of a rubbish truck of plastic every minute at this rate that will grow to two trucks a minute by the year twenty thirty and for trucks going into our oceans every minute by twenty fifty by which time by weight they will be as much plastic if not more in our oceans than fish plastic like this more than five trillion paces is already there in our oceans creating these huge garbage patch is the largest of which is floating off the Pacific Coast of the United States so lets get into this now joining us from brussels is john mark simone he is the executive director of the brussels based zero waste europe european angio advocating for more responsible Waste Management its nice to have you with us john lets talk about the events that happened in nairobi first of all the United Nations summit the fact that they came out with the declaration is good burger nonbinding one is that well is that helpful it is helpful because it shows that there is will to go in a certain direction it is it will remember Climate Change from the beginning to where we are now it took time so i think theres a consensus that the problem is there plastic is a planetary problem so yes we have a declaration now its important to turn. Into measures but action it takes place at the local Level National level and local level and before we get into that action i want to actually go big picture with you here and actually a bit of history almost how do do we. To the stage where we became so addicted if you like to plastic and the fact that they would be five trillion pieces of plastic in our oceans what was the trigger that made plastics so popular i guess thats a very good question i mean as you mentioned before World War Two we didnt have much plastic in society all together as i would say theres many factors i would factor at three first of all plastic is cheap benes a byproduct of oil refining which you know way like the price is one issue second a throw away culture of the american way of life like theyre associating disposability that throw you away culture with modernity so i actually like this fast paced Life Associated with throw away culture that pl