[Music] [Music] hello i'm hasam seeker this is counting the cost on al jazeera your look at the world of business and economics this week no one is safe until everyone is safe coronavirus is forcing the world to take unified action against health emergencies but are rich countries ready to foot the bill for a global treaty on pandemic readiness also this week they are super fast and unstoppable hypersonic missiles are driving a new arms race between the superpowers and defense giants are eyeing the profits driven by the sun sono motors raises millions to get its solar-powered cars on the road you talk to one of the company's co-founders [Music] the money spent by one person a week to buy a chocolate bar could help stop the spread of coronavirus and stave off huge economic losses that's according to save the children the aid agency says every dollar invested in the global vaccination drive rich nations could avoid losing 35 dollars from their budgets yet wealthy nations have failed to provide the poorer countries with the much needed vaccines and there's been a lack of coordination to tackle the pandemic that need to cooperate is now gaining momentum after the omicron variant of covid19 was detected in south africa the variant threatens to reverse economic recovery and affect government's plans to deal with high inflation and supply chain backlogs the world health organization member states have agreed to negotiate a global treaty on pandemic preparedness but it would take years for the treaty to be put in place the agreement is not expected to be signed before 2024 potentially after this pandemic has ended and it aims to set up a global structure that would identify threats earlier and better share information on emerging viruses some countries have pushed for a sharp increase in domestic funding for healthcare systems they've suggested an international financing mechanism worth 75 billion us dollars over five years among other ideas boosting financial contributions to the who while calling for changes to its governance and one of the most crucial elements of the plan equal access to health goods meeting demand for vaccines and other drugs and eliminating choke points in the system drug makers have opposed sharing the recipes of coronavirus vaccines with poor nations and the push at the world trade organization to waive intellectual property rights of the doses have so far failed south africa is one of those leading the push for waivers at the wto after alerting the world about the omicron variant it now feels punished after several countries imposed travel bans on southern african nations president cyril ramaphosa says the measures are hurting their economies they basically say we will not allow you to travel around but lo and behold omicron is spreading all over the world including in their own countries and now you ask yourself where is science they've always said to us base your decisions on signs but when the moment comes for them to be more scientific they are not they resort to their own self-interest and ban travel from the southern african countries well i'm joined now from johannesburg by dr lunkele monde who is a professor at the school of economics and finance with the university of witwatersrand he's also a former chief economist and executive vice president at the south africa industrial development corporation good to have you with us doctor now we talked about how um south africa despite being the first to identify this variant and alert the world to it the response from much of the world was travel bans why do you think that happened this happened because of national innovation systems excellence by south africa based on the knowledge that south africa built during the hiv aids pandemic and therefore the ability of tracking of developing a support mechanism research and development around pandemics and the ability to share that information has been shown to be south africa's fault um that is able to show the world how capable we are and how we can we're prepared also to share the knowledge because we believe in global solidarity so that all the information that we've gathered can share and the world can learn how to come with a preventative measure so south africa is being punished for its research excellence do these kind of knee-jerk reactions just expose the lack of of global clarity on this the lack of a coordinated response absolutely it also indicates the extent to which uh tribal leadership has weakened over many many years of neoliberalism about them globally and a push towards globalization where over there since the 1970s we've seen the erosion of capabilities of many states and reliance of them on the market and in that process eroded political leadership in preference for the market and when pandemics and crisis arise such as the global financial crisis that we saw in tour age and now recently the the global health pandemic that global leaders are unable to come with consented effort that only not address their own needs as nation-states but also address global human challenges because we're all one we're all humans therefore we need that global solidarity cooperation collaboration and sharing of vaccines so that all of us come out together healthy as human beings within the wild app and what do you think the impact of these travel bans is going to be on south africa's economy the longer they're in place catastrophic south africa already not only has it's got high levels of inflation and of omnicron but also high levels of unemployment at about 34. 9 percent a designing economy which shrunk by 1. 5 in the third quarter of 20.
1 but more importantly where it needs to create jobs the tourism center because of south africa's beautiful flora and fauna of really well just facilities that is being punished because it is now summer in south africa and we usually get quite a lot of american european uh middle east and asian visitors to our country and therefore we are not going to be able to address the problems of highlighted if the band continues and we call upon the world to really think deeply and avoid this new reaction and open up the skies so that we can as we address the pandemic we also allow people to get jobs and improve their livelihoods and that's why there's been this talk of of a global pandemic uh treaty what do you think of that idea is it's first of all is it something that could work and and is it going to materialize it's something that could work remember that after the first world war we worked together and really pushed for the formation of what today we call central banks following the second world war also work together as a world in the reconstruction development of world economies by forming the the the two institutions of pedro roads the world bank and the imf even with the collapse of the gold standard we came with mechanism of supporting one another so we've got a history of global solidarity particularly after catastrophic events and convict has been catastrophic and as i've argued that you know the treaty will go a long way again uh to reignite and forge uh your humanity together as we have done so historically as i've indicated and therefore we feel in south africa and many of our african brothers and sisters that were being let down again by the by particularly europe and america in really taking a center stage as they did together south africa in these episodes i've mentioned the first the second world war and the collapse of the gold standard so it is that edge that we that agents that we need from the global um leadership to come to the table to sign the treaty so that you can be able to share the knowledge distribute vaccine to highly intended poor countries and really continue to get our economies going as we as we work together to make sure that there's no human being left behind in a world that is full of pandemics as well as global inequality this global pandemic treaty aims to provide money for things like health care systems personal protective equipment research and and pandemic preparedness but all this is going to cost money so who do you think should pay for it yes so we have got military institutions that have talked about particularly the president whose institutions they need to come to the party publicly supporting the highly injected poor countries who have got no resources whatsoever in the areas of supplying vaccines as well as a personal positive equipment the rest of lower milk income and upper middle income countries can also access loans and which are very soft within fact the world bank and imf announced around supporting these countries so i think a lot of this effort we can pay ourselves out of it but you require that global cooperation through a tragedy because most of our countries don't have research capabilities and therefore they'll require support to fund deeper research collection of data and therefore in doing so mitigate any uh potential um mutilation as well as um other other pandemics cropping up so really it's a mixture of global solidarity finding it a mixture of us who can are capable and are able financially to find ourselves and really global support for the highly entered and poor countries who've got no resources to ensure that they get free access to all the support mechanism including the creation of capabilities for research and knowledge development and the scientists have pointed out that until the whole world is vaccinated this is just going to keep happening we're still going to get new variants uh coming through which will keep slowing down our efforts to get out of this pandemic do you think the omicron variant is the wake up call and you think the rich countries will stop hoarding vaccines now well it is a wake-up call for all of us as humanity and i think because of rick leadership in many of the global north countries there is a tendency of protecting um their firms what have argued with earlier that since 1970s with neoliberalism many governments gave a lot of power to to markets and and entrepreneurship and companies in this case big pharmacies so if they continue protecting and giving power to those companies we're unlikely to deal decisively with this pandemic therefore we call upon the european and american leadership to rise to the challenge and work together with the farmers there but with our own pharmaceuticals in the global south and share knowledge share the vaccine and give free vaccine to poor high internal countries and in doing that and working together as one will be able to overcome this pandemic but at the same time will open up our economies and ensure that we create opportunities because we're facing huge challenges outside the pandemic without our damage and the unsustainability of the world earth if we continue with the pandemic and also not coming up working together on dealing with climate change which is also going to bring its own challenges such as food shortages and therefore famine and poverty in many of the world um countries dr loub killed monday thanks for being with us it's been a pleasure thanks for having me now the new arms race is all about speed hypersonic missiles not only fly many times faster than the speed of sound they are highly maneuverable can carry nuclear warheads and are hard to detect several countries are now spending billions to develop them they include france india japan australia and north korea but china the us and russia are running the most advanced programs moscow recently fired its circon hypersonic missile from a warship and says it is part of a new generation of unrivaled armed systems but it is china's advancements that are worrying the united states the most washington says beijing has fired a projectile from the system during a test carried out in july that signals the chinese program has outpaced other countries china denies it carried out the test the us is developing its own hypersonic weapons while the pentagon has been pushing for it the army is not expected to field its first missile before 2023 washington has awarded contracts to major defense companies to develop a new hypersonic glide phase interceptor it says it will be able to destroy an incoming hypersonic missile the u. s has increased funding for hypersonic weapons in recent years the pentagon's budget request for the weapon research is 3. 8 billion dollars next year up from its 3.
2 billion for 2021. russia has made upgrading its nuclear arsenal a priority over the next two years it plans to spend around 50 billion dollars on defense china is investing heavily in advanced weaponry and more than 209 billion dollars was set aside for defense this year but its military budget is thought to be much larger than the official figures due to buried costs well i'm joined here in dolha now by defense analyst alex gatopoulos to find out what's the big deal behind hypersonics thanks for being with us alex so just tell us what is the attraction of of of these hypersonic missiles right now why are so many countries investing in them well hypersonic is a buzzword it's um it it's basically a measure of how fast that missile is going so it's anything beyond five times the speed of sound or put another way it's uh six thousand two hundred kilometers so very fast but normal missiles already travel this speed normal ballistic missiles a hypersonic missile is designed to leave the earth you leave the atmosphere and then plunge straight back in what it can do is evade missile defenses uh that have been developed to stop traditional ballistic missiles and that makes it dangerous in the sense that it can't be stopped and you you won't know until the last minute what the target actually is so it's unpredictable in essence speaking of unpredictability um because it's it's something so new right now in in the arms in the arms world there isn't an agreement uh between the u. s and china and there's also the expiry of most of the the old cold war accords between the us and russia so that makes it kind of a a free-for-all right now doesn't it it does and that free for all was on the cards um the united states has pulled out some of those big cold war agreements uh russia and turn has also started to ignore them china was never a signatory so it's not bound by any of these agreements and it has been developing its technology military technology at full pace and now it's the other countries that are starting to catch up now that they're not pinned down by these old agreements that frankly never really anticipated these new technologies coming up and they're they're out of date and why is the us lagging behind china on this well the the focus has been on counter insurgency and those rather thorny problems for the last decade and a half the united states has been embroiled in at least two wars uh and also the very costly um process of potentially nation building so the money hasn't been there and then you've had an economic crisis which has obviously had an impact on what can be developed but now now that those wars have finished now those wars are over now that china has taken a jump ahead in capabilities america is now also catching up and by the way they have been developing this stuff quietly for about at least a decade with some degree of success so do you do you expect the u.
s to start investing more in this technology now knowing that china seems to be racing ahead on this absolutely absolutely i think most countries will uh france is also investing by the way uh india is developing a hypersonic missile hypersonic version of its brahmos missile so all modern militaries will be looking to to start to get this capability and to incorporate it into their arsenals and military thinking and do these weapons have the potential to actually change the balance of power at all at the moment hypersonic is a buzzword it sounds great it sounds futuristic but these technologies have been around for decades it's how you use these new missiles that's really going to see determine whether they're actually got any more use on the battlefield or not they're fast they're unpredictable and that's always a good thing when you are trying to destroy your enemy and how lucrative is this going to be potentially for defense contractors i mean how beneficial is this going to be from a business point of view i think certainly for the united states point of view um budgetary bodies are already worried about massive cost overruns we had the stealth f-35 program go way way way over budget and i think i think now each of the three services are worried that they're going to be dragged into some sort of uh commitment where you start to pay for something and then a decade down the line it's costing three times as much all right alex catopolis thank you now german sono motors is one of a handful of startups that have developed a solar-powered vehicle its passenger scion car is wrapped by solar panels that can automatically charge itself when it's sunny it sounds environmentally friendly though it's not quite fully solar powered the car still has a battery but it doesn't rely on being plugged in the compact five-door hatchback will be sold for 28 700 us dollars and is expected to make it to consumers by the first half of 2023 while the car can be charged through a war box sono says the sun which feeds energy into the battery can handle most of the daily commute so from munich via zoom i'm joined now by lauren hahn the co-founder and chief executive of sono motors thanks very much for being with us so obviously you're heavily invested in this and you believe that solar powered cars are the future tell us why we we see that combustion engines are a thing of the past electric vehicles are the present and solar electric vehicles we believe are the future why well because they do one thing convenience convenience for our customers up to four times more range compared to any other electric vehicle with the same battery size and that's convenience that's why we integrate solar onto vehicles but critics have pointed out the limits of this technology at the moment the fact that no solar panel they say can generate enough power to drive the car around while still being small enough to be carried by the vehicle itself what do you say to that look our solar technology means that we charge this vehicle uh with 5 800 kilometers on average per year the driving distance is on average 12 000 kilometers a year in europe so what you have is already half of the distance you drive on average in europe is today covered by solar and now think about solar technology improving in efficiency over the next years we will have cars on the road which cover your daily distance and that's why we integrate solar on every vehicle what's your primary market right now where do you see demand at the moment mainly coming from for these cars look we have two pillars where we build up our business on first the sev the solar electric vehicle where we have 16 000 down payments worth over 400 million us in revenue on the second pillar we license and sell our solar technology to b2b customers trucks trains campers and buses whatever moves we can integrate solar and all of that we make possible because our mission is put solar on every vehicle and you say uh solar-powered cars makes electric vehicles more affordable your car is being sold as we mentioned earlier at just under twenty nine thousand dollars how do you manage to keep it at that level well there are five strategies we have which make this car so affordable first we have only one product second we have no own factory we let a contract manufacturer produce third no paint shop because of solar fourth online direct sales and lastly only solar panels means you have no press stamping steel tools for the outer skin and that five strategies allow us to be so affordable with our first vehicle a lot of people who perhaps are not familiar with this technology and they hear they hear the word solar-powered cars they'll they'll be inclined to think well this this can only really work in in warm countries or in places where the sun is is out all the time and in northern countries where it's cloudy and so on what's going to happen then i'm not going to be able to get power in my car what do i do then what do you say to that our numbers and figures we have on our website are in munich and i can tell you munich is not the sunniest place and even here makes sense totally sense but if you go more south especially in region with a lot of sun this car is perfect this car is perfect for commuters this car is perfect for taxi drivers for delivery services for communities this car is being shared it's having bi-directional charging it has in solar panels integrated and being very affordable so with that we see great potential for other regions in the world good to have you on lauren hahn thanks for being with us thank you so much bye and that is our show for this week get in touch with us by tweeting me at hasim seeker and do use the hashtag ajctc when you do or drop us an email counting the cost at al jazeera. net is our address there's more for you online at al jazeera.
