Time. One of the largest europe, manila ah, one of the top stories on our 0. There are fears of full scale conflict in gaza after israel launch to wave a vast tribes and rockets were fired from the strip in response, Palestinian Group is im, if you had says its 500. 00 rockets in total aimed at is ready cities including television, israels, on dont miss our system has been deployed to intercept the air. Raid sirens have been heard in southern and central israel. All this follows and is ready operation. Earlier in the day, a high rise tower in garza city was hit in a loud explosion. Which left smith pouring from the building, at least 10 people, including a 5 year old go, were killed and dozens more injured israel. So there strikes targeted the Islamic JihadGroup Commander was killed in one of them. And hes really Prime Minister says it will do whatever it takes to defend itself is carried out. The precise come to terror, peroration against an immediate threat. Our fight is not, was the people who garza Islamic Jihad is in iranian proxy, that wants to destroy the state of israel and kill innocent israelis, the head of Islamic Jihad into here. And as we speak, we will do whatever it takes to defend up the elevators. China is carrying out its biggest ever military exercises in the seas around taiwan. Its in retaliation for us house because nancy pelosi visit to ty pay earlier this week. The u. S. As described chinas actions as a significant escalation. While paging has warned washington against creating the crisis, the tensions of dominated talks at the Foreign Ministers meeting, taking place in cambodia. 3 more shipments of grain of left ukrainian port sandra deal broken by the u. N. And turkey. The congress ships loaded with nearly 60000 tons of corn, defaulted from shore mosque, and odessa on friday morning, one is headed to ireland, another to the u. K. And the 3rd to turkey. The 1st inbound congo vessel is also making its way to ukraine by the black sea to load you crazy economy. Administer says the deal should now be extended to cover more crops. Thats it from us now. Counting, the cost is up next life enough. On the 9th of august, and well head to the polls, the country eat break for a closely contested general election will determine if president , im a growing political and economic pension. Who will be announced the widow and can vote expect a free and Fair Election join us for special coverage on all 0. Ah, hello, im sammy say that this is counting the cost on al jazeera, your weekly look at the world of business and economics. This week, running out of patience, chinese home buyers are holding payments on Unfinished Projects for 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 that means for bilateral trade and russia intends to pull out of the International Space station after 2024. Can moscow afforded own project . What does that mean to face exploration . Ah, now real estate has been one of the biggest drivers of Economic Growth in, im not counting for one 3rd of the countries. 18 trillion us dollar g, d p. But its 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 that, that crisis among developers have slowed down the Property Market and halted construction on thousands of projects. Home buyers now in short, frustrated, theyre refusing to pay the mortgage on properties. Theyve bought. The boy called involved 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. In declining sales, adding to the pressure on the Property Market, chinas 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 chinas 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 or mortgage payments, and the central bank back fun to lend Financial Support to developers. Businesses struggled to obtain financing and the last 2 years is badging cracked down on their line from debt. Well, joining us from singapore is rajiv biswas. He is the asia pacific chief economist, that s and p Global Market intelligence. Thanks for coming rodriguez. First of all, lets start with the courts. How serious are the mortgage boy called, how serious the thrive 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 thats manifested in delays to projects. So it is relatively small sub sector of the total number of borrowers. Whats 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, theres 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 effect or borrowers. But in this particular case, chinas regulatory authorities back in 2020, wanted to reduce macroeconomic vulnerability to high leverage and the real estate 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 companys 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 for Financial Stress. So i think some of the problems are, were seeing are related to those efforts by the chinese regulatory authorities right now. In addition to red lines, theyre now trying to put together a fund to try and help some of these over leveraged firms is not enough. Or theyre trying to walk, you know, balance between continuing to maintain their efforts to reduce leverage, which is an important creek. You know, my 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 thats been evident, even in the 2nd half of last year. Its the combination of those sort of 2 sides of the equation where they dont want to just, you know, provide huge amounts of stimulus and let problems again resurface. But on the other hand, they also dont want to create a crisis. So theyre 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 theyre doing the best they can to ensure the projects are somehow completed even through restructured arrangements where other developers may have to play a role and also local authorities. I also got the issue of mortgage defaults, right. What does that mean for banks . Again, because when we talk about the amount of loans at risk because of this situation, its a relatively small share of the total bank lending for the Property Market. So its not well banks then, well, its always a search for banks when you see ronnie seeing distress and certain segments of their loan books. And in particular, its not only about the borrowers facing risk, but its 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 thats 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 in china are vast, summing there amongst the biggest 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 fallen prices in the Property Market, that increases potential distress. But at the moment, thats not the situation thats facing china. Theres modern declines and price is. Now deal everything that you said, and im wondering whats 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 mar, 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. Its also going to be slowing down in the 2nd half as well. All right, thanks so much for sharing your analysis on that. Reggies. Thank you very much. Columbia and venezuela have been political foes for years of a range of issues including an increase in the number of venezuela migrants crossing the country. Shad border but baba thought has a new left wing president. Andys promising to men ties with caracas now because of the 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 co kuta. So the catalina morris, co owner of a bio degradable Detergent Company in cooper proudly shows off her cleaning products. But when shes missing these days, our clients, economic hardships meant she had to let go of 21 of her 23 employees. She says only the resumption of trade with venezuela will save her. No offense. 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. Its 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 was 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 where 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 gist takes geography costs and agriculture. We could be the venezuelan pantry for food and raw materials. I mean weve been victims of political fight last been bitter divisions among political foes, the left, the regional tatters. This is a bridge of d n. D t, as a state of the art overpass with 3 lanes in each direction. Warehouses, offices in everything thats 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 and that was 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 reestablished 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 free zone today we have none 0. But one thing everyone here agrees is that reopen the border, is the 1st step to providing opportunities for both sides. Allison, their m p a t t l, jersey cook with the right. Joining us from georgia in the u. A. E is hire a local candle. Hes the dean of the college of communication at the university of georgia and the latin america analysts good to have you with us. So hire to reopening the border. Of course, thats 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. Its going to be a big challenge for both sides, for one on the one hand, of course, as well as economy, although somehow recover a bit, its 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, im 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 its both in the north through the heat, our region as well as in the south in cooper and, and so the guarantees that each government can, you 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 cant really put out a number, but i can tell you that in the early 90 ninetys, when the president carlos and repairs made up, big for 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, its, well, it was a robust economy even though have a problem. We had lots of things to act along by 1st, there were what types of you can been, its well important out of the market will lake to both import an export of products from the north region in columbia. All those conditions are no longer there at the moment. Im going to mention this, let me pick up an appointment that you mentioned and off this though, ill 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 Insurance 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 fell, let alone to export. Now some companies have been well on our export, like a pump beta rum add some very control industry the oil industry. But thats it. You know, we dont 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 doesnt mean a free pass for my ad. Theres nothing in the leasing agreement that says that now ben is one of them can, can, can move without the proper documents. And the other thing is, and the post called me era columbia, theres 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 doesnt make it that welcome, you know, that we 6 receptive tube. And so that might also be economy. I dont think so. I dont think that we should expect the open in the bottom is that all the, all the image will go through. And remember the portion of the initial and do not stopping, but they both belong to the value in, in panama. And theyre looking at walking or hiking all the way to the united states, which is the final, the connection with many. So i dont think that we should expect mrs. I know bidding of the border will make it easier for the, for the but im mike. More secure, what it can allow us in that depends on be the colombian government, on their style pedestal is that they are the relapse the measures. So when its, when am i can vote in or in a legal way what . And i think thats, thats the necessary steps to take. Now, ive been a great chat. Thanks so much higher i q the International Space station is all through the bava for more than 2 decades. And its been used to conduct thousands of scientific experiments. Well, that was thanks to russia and the u. S. Overlooking bear 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 off to 2024. I