zero world hears from three palestinian women whose lives have been dictated by their relationships with men in prison. waiting on hold on al-jazeera. hello i'm adrian finnegan this is counting the cost on al-jazeera a weekly look at the world of business and economics this week trump gambles the world economy on shutting down iran's ability to sell oil overseas. but also this week an indestructible phone screen a chinese tech giant and an f.b.i. sting we talked to the inventor who suspects his technology was stolen. donald trump's attempts to make iran abandon its nuclear ambitions and change its

foreign policy is thwart with danger after ripping up a nuclear agreement with teheran trump is forcing china india and turkey to end imports of crude from the islamic republic trump is gambling that there's an hour for oil from the u.s. saudi arabia and the united arab emirates to fill the void but global supplies could be up ended by events in venezuela and libya meeting that trump is pushing the world's economy to the brink we've got three reports for you from beijing catrina you on beijing china is iran's biggest oil but it's entering another round of trade talks with the u.s. and from the straits of hormuz in basra the reports on iran's plans to block sea lanes but we start with mike hanna in washington on saudi arabia's role in the u.s. foreign policy. it was a surprise to many when president trump chose riyadh to sit destination of his first international trip in office but two years on it's clear this was more of

a signal as to the central role saudi arabia would play in his administration's decision making. driven home when it was made clear the imposition of oil sanctions against iran was done in coordination with a leave other stuff about the details of what the site is in the immoralities have agreed to but i've had conversations the president conversations with these countries and there they have committed to making sure that there is a sufficient supply in the markets. confirmation of saudi coordination came just days after president trump signaled a major policy reversal in libya in an obvious not to riyadh expressing u.s. support for the saudi backed warlord fighting the internationally recognized government in tripoli the announcement makes clear that saudi arabia is now a fulcrum of the united states foreign policy this despite the fact that congress has held saudi arabia responsible for the murder of the journalist jamal khashoggi

as well as for the deaths in the ongoing war in yemen even senior republican leaders have said until these situations are resolved responsibility for the murder of khashoggi is assigned it simply cannot be business as usual the white house simply ignores this position a congressional resolution condemning saudi arabia's actions in yemen the subject of presidential veto in president trump size it seems the relationship with three are more important than that with congress in delhi and one of china's most important ports some twenty million barrels of oil are reportedly stranded waiting to clear chinese customs. with the united states ending waivers on a rainy and oil purchases this week the future of the shipment is unclear the u.s. has tightened sanctions on all countries that continue to buy iranian oil after the

first of may that includes china iran's biggest customer beijing says there's no justification for the u.s. policy. imposed by the us. roughly a quarter of iran's exported oil is sold to china about half a million barrels a day the two countries have grown closer in recent years president xi jinping mediterranean counterpart in beijing last june just one month after the u.s. imposed sanctions on iran iran is a key supporter of china's built in road infrastructure initiative designed to ease chinese global trade but analysts say china may have no option but to bow to u.s. demands and. the united states is serious in forcing china to pick a side the chinese government has to be very careful the timing is critical this

week top negotiators from washington arrived in beijing for a new round of trade talks both sides are working to finalize a deal to end escalating tit for tat tariffs which began last year experts say china may give up iranian oil which makes up about seven percent of china's total oil imports to avoid jeopardizing discussions on trade for china now and the most important relation is still it's not with iran it's where the u.s. and there are other battles china need to fight in terms of transformative technology. on chinese desperate some sort of cutting slack from the u.s. should china stop buying iranian oil it could compensate tehran by boosting trade in other areas if it continues it could do so via a backdoor. but. china has so far given no in the times to stop buying oil drilling some to believe. washington

officials have any wind down period or additional waiver out of the question. so for iran has responded to u.s. economic pressure with rhetoric at home and diplomacy abroad but since the u.s. said it will not extend sanctions waivers to let iran sell oil to its biggest clients iranian leaders have started hinting at slowing traffic in the strait of hormuz an estimated twenty percent of the world's oil passes through these waterways the mere mention of the name can move markets and raise concerns in global capitals while leaders say if iran can't use the strait to sell its oil no one can they also say they intend to keep the shipping lanes near their shores wide open in everyone's best interest but behind balanced remarks in the waters near iran's southern coast are battle ready boats this is as close as we can get to an iranian warship the navy takes the security of its vessels very seriously especially around the waters of the strait of hormuz where boats like this have the

job of policing traffic in the waterway but also looking out for american warships that any time there are dozens of cargo ships visible on the horizon giving a sense of how much traffic these waterways see on a daily basis the message here is iran considers itself in charge of these waters in the middle of all this is the small but strategic. in the seventeenth century it was home to a fort for the portuguese navy one local guide says it's still the perfect place to monitor and control traffic in the strait some living here worry a conflict could make their quite island. already to go wrong and yes we are concerned if it happens nothing will remain here families and lives will be destroyed noon when others doubt it will come to that time. namely that father hasn't been any conflict here as long as i remember i don't have any concerns maybe some people do but as far as i can remember nothing has happened

to make. this coastline doesn't have any hotels and it's not teeming with any beach goers the scenic island remains largely in developed perhaps by design we're at the southernmost point of hormuz island now and the waves washing up against this rocky beach that water is from the strait of hormuz this is the strait just here and it is a very picturesque setting there are tourists that are coming through in buses it is a very nice place but make no mistake for the government this place serves the function of a pressure point backed into a corner iran's leaders say they will respond in the u.s. will be to blame for whatever comes next the point is centuries old places like this as a reminder that they faced foreigners at their shores before and if pushed they can do it again so what will be the impact on the global economy and do sanctions hurt the nation imposing them in this case should iran carry out its threat to blockade

the persian gulf for that matter what if oil stops flowing from other hot spots like libya and venezuela well oil prices could shoot up to one hundred dollars a barrel that could shave nor point six percent of world growth and inflation could rise by north point seven percent stretched u.s. consumers have already seen gas prices rise seven percent this month to two dollars eighty nine cents a gallon they could rise further crimping growth since the u.s. cut ties with iran after the one nine hundred seventy seven revolution it's been estimated to have lost export revenues of one hundred seventy five billion dollars from one thousand nine hundred five to two thousand and twelve that translates into sixty six thousand job opportunities lost on average per year joining us now from washington d.c. via skype is the. surely sara is the founder and president of energy international good said he with us once again sorrow oil prices have risen by what a third this year in part due to these sanctions wave is one of the consequences

for the world economy of these full sanctions now being implemented well on the world economy if the sanctions cause the price spike then it's going to have impacts on a one economy of course well at this point us at the destruction is hoping that saudi arabia u.a.e. opec members will increase their production and they're hoping that there's not going to be a significant price rise from the sanctions in may. we shall wait and see but saudi arabia says that it's not ready to make up the lost production from iran and that the u.s. could only what replace about a quarter of of that i mean this isn't looking good is it. well actually first of all to begin with can u.s. substitute iranian oil really know because the crude quality matters and iran and crude oil is heavy u.s. crude oil is the really the best match for iran in cool oily saudi crude oil and

the closest the other is u.a.e. so these only closest crude types to iranian are current quality for the refiners you find areas cannot easily change their diet but what you're expecting is that saudi arabia before november before the first sets of sanctions into the implementation in two thousand and eighteen it raced in production but suddenly it's only been surprised by the eight waivers that were announced by the u.s. administration so based on the are waiting actually two well today's may second but if they're waiting to see that how much actually iranian oil supply is going to be excluded from the market how much iran can smuggle or sell informally and if u.s. government would come up with some sort of sanctions some sort of waivers formally or informally so they would wait and see how much actually iranian oil supply is going to be removed from the market and then act accordingly to manage in the market and substitute iranian oil but it only takes one event to spook the markets

only a week or so ago russia had to tell europeans that the oil pump through a pipeline was contaminated you look at the other unpredictable things that are going on right now in libya and in venezuela is there going to be blowback here for the united states and the president trump it's a very very good question because even if we have saudi arabian opec covering for iranian oil again most of this substitution would come from saudi arabia and sony really is a country and major opec member that has their highest the serapis spare capacity in a market so if they want to saudi arabia to cover for iranian oil that it's a spare capacity and opec and russia then if there is any other event the market would not. i have enough spare capacity to cover for that and to and in the event of any major incident and then we have a significant impact on the prices also beside that we have iran and that they are constantly traveling the market that if they cannot export any oil they are going

to either close the strait of hormuz a retaliate on a global oil flow so all of these also could create potentially a psychology called impact on the prices however as of now looking at the future prices you don't see any psychological impact the future price of oil for the next few months do i must significantly higher so the market hasn't been panic the yet but yes if there is any incident then there's going to be a major effect on the price and with iran's economy the way that it is if it needs to sell oil you talked about iran possibly getting oil covertly to market how how might it do that. well iran has still its own way still. want to call it a smuggler informally sell its oil and they have done it before there is or are as thing that circle estimate is that under the nuclear sanctions that in two thousand and twelve until end of two thousand and fifteen iran was able to smuggle about a hundred fifty to two hundred thousand barrels of oil. to market

a day and this this is the amount that iran could as still say sell in the black market but is not very significant if you compare the two point seven million barrels of export back in april two thousand and eighteen also what we expect is that still iran might denver oil to china and india as part of so it's certain depths that it has to do is countries as a death payment so we might have still see some iranian oil shipment to this country so we do want expect that iranian oil export would go to an actual zero it might remain somewhere between two hundred to five hundred thousand barrels per day but to what extent in the long term this president trump if playing with fire will there be pushback from countries like you mentioned china turkey as as as well git politically is this going to cause trouble for him. well. if there is enough supply

in a market the market is gong we expect that these countries would comply with u.s. sanctions particularly china is a very interesting case because historically china never complied with u.s. sanctions again going back to their sanctions during president obama china was at an average importing about six hundred thousand barrels of oil a day which means that it was not been in compliance with u.s. sanctions but these time during the new sets sets of sanctions under president trump china was really in a very full compliance feed our u.s. sanctions which was very historic and what is interesting is that china u.s. relation in terms of especially energy trade is going to a new era and all will look at the trade war and trade argument but it's kind of i wouldn't call it a pre-marriage conflict between the two countries they're setting their terms because if you look at it china is now d.c. or the highest is going to be to record that you highest an importer of l.n.g.

so china's appetite for oil and gas could be supplied by us but also us as a country that china could have invested in the stakes in its oil and gas production would have been observed is that chinese of the fineries and companies that are very hesitant to enter any business or support of iran under the sanctions to come flaked in their interest with the united states dr it's great to talk to you again on counting the cost many thanks indeed for being with us dr sarra. thank you. the young inventor developed technology to make the screen on mobile phones stronger and more scratch resistant he sent his products to a chinese tech giant but the diamond glass returned broken with fragments missing now that raised suspicions and led to an f.b.i. sting al-jazeera as john hendren reports. this is a story about a small american technology startup a giant chinese conglomerate and industrial espionage it starts here in illinois

where adam kahn formed a company a con semiconductor where they make a kind of glass for cell phones that is said to be six times stronger than the industry standard so you can drop it and it won't break and it looks something like that he was looking for a manufacturer to make it and among the companies he talked to were hallway of china they had a facility in california so he sent them a sample with two provisions first they could not damage it that's standard protection against industrial espionage and second they couldn't take it out of the country because it's made with a kind of industrial diamond like material that has military properties and is illegal to export from the united states nevertheless it was returned months later and broken that was when the company thought perhaps they were being ripped off by the chinese so they spoke to the f.b.i. you examined this sample and determined that it had been cut by a military strength industrial laser and there were pieces missing which suggested

the chinese had held on to them to examine it but it's part of a wide ranging probe into huawei by companies and the u.s. government in fact the c.f.o. of qual way faces charges in brooklyn the company just settled a suit in washington state where it is alleged to have stolen part of a robot owned by t. mobile the robot was called tapi by the way and the trumpet ministration is urging american companies not to use while weighs five g. technology that's because they're afraid that the company is installing a backdoor that would allow them to listen to americans and possibly engage in cyber warfare as for the a con technology you see here you might look for it one day soon on a cell phone near you. adam cohen of a consummate conductor thank you for being with counting the cost thank you having me first off you've got nearly breakable smartphone technology what is it and how did you come up with it so our mirage diamond glass technology is actually

a lab grown men or crystal in diamond it has all of the material properties that you'd find in bulk diamond exceptional hardness it's exceedingly high thermal conductivity it's an exceptionally robust material it's chemically inert biologically inert as well as having the optics that you'd require from a display glass so we've married a very thin layer of nano diamond with display glass creating the world's first display technology for cell phone smartphone and consumer facing technologies how could it revolution is the smartphone industry and what other applications does it have so right now the glass that majority of smartphones use this chemically hardened alumina silicate glass was actually pioneered to the one nine hundred sixty s. not a lot has been done in terms innovating that glass which is why every time we drop our phone we see the spider web cracks the brake lines diamond being exceptionally hard and being scratch resistant not only helps with that break strength but also when you're tearing around your cell phone in your bag. alongside with you keys

things that would normally break the material no longer do so you will no longer need this protective top coat to protect the surface it will also be a stronger display for drop protection and as we move to technologies like foldable smartphone this will be even more important because we already see cracks and creases being formed in those glass types so you're looking for a partner to manufacture the phone and one of the companies you talked to was huawei of china what happened so at the time was the third largest now they're the second largest smartphone manufacturer world wide they have actually reached out to us seeing some of these breakthrough announcements in a white paper conference proceedings that we had pursued the were very interested in the technology for their flagship smartphone as well as for their smart watch. and we began the engagement with them in two thousand and sixteen around twenty seventeen we started shipping samples for their evaluation the samples back damaged and in the last instance we actually saw that they retained

a portion of the sample which prompted the events that followed and what exactly did follow after that sample was broken the last one you wanted up talking to the f.b.i. we did so we noticed that the sample was returned to this facility here in gurney illinois that a good portion of it was missing from these pieces this is not something that could be done in shipping again this is exceptionally hard material and it was also packed rather airtight so that way it could be insensitive to things like vibrational and handling so we knew right away that there was an issue we had contacted our contacts at the f.b.i. chicago field office with whom we were previously acquainted from some technology executive briefings and we've asked for their help to do some analysis on this and sure enough they're finding was that the sample was intentionally cleaved using a high intensity laser and that's when this becomes a kind of james bond story your company contacts the f.b.i. the f.b.i.

asks your company to become essentially industrial spies for the government. i look at it more so that we're looking to protect our technology f.b.i. recognizing the breakthrough of the technology platform not necessarily a conscious if the importance of time and technology readily stepped up to help us protect and reclaim its technology tell me about that meeting with huawei officials in las vegas where you had people who were miked up. it didn't go entirely as planned what happened well i guess they usually say that anything that can happen will happen during these sort of instances but yes we met with huawei at the consumer electronic show again to get on record that they had willfully export of this to. acknowledging and willfully infringed or attempted to reverse engineer our technology from their perspective they were during the meeting still attempting to be the exclusive licensee of our technology asking things like when we were going

to ramp when we were going to bring this technology to market and where they have able to still pursue the exclusive so from their perspective i think they were doing a little bit more digging tunder stand now the scaling in operation side having some material in hand from our perspective we want to document beyond any reasonable doubt what they had attempted to do which was steal our technology so you had a conversation it was recorded as i understand it means admitted that they did send this sample for testing in china which as you understand it is a violation of u.s. law and they asked whether the u.s. government was listening to that conversation they actually won the step beyond that they had said we looked into it and we said they thought that they could willfully or they could legally export the technology so again even though our paperwork it explicitly stated you know state side only do not export they admitted that they looked into it and believe that they can do so and i pointed out during that meeting diamond is part of the e.a. are the expert in arms restricted materials which has heavy criminal heavy criminal

jail time as well as actual fines associated with it so where are we now where is that investigation lie and where do things lie between your company and huawei so the department of justice is still pursuing the case against huawei semiconductor plans to file a civil litigation in tandem with those charges we are not privy to the department of justice is timetable timetable nor do we believe we ought to be but we sit patiently waiting to put our port our part in that proceeding with huawei directly i was actually at the hallway san diego facility yesterday just before this to get to ask for our sample materials i noticed that particular location that's changed their name to future away and again i was given the runaround that they would get back to us with respect to the sample status so again from their perspective i think they're denying or playing in the dark with respect to where the samples lie it's our belief that these materials are still in china which is exceptionally problematic for us. adam conover

a consummate conductor thank you for talking to us and counting the cost thank you fascinating well that's our show for this week if you'd like to comment on anything that you've seen you can tweet me i'm at a figure on twitter please use the hash tag a j c t c when you do or drop us a line counting the cost of al-jazeera dot net is our e-mail address as always there's more for you online at al-jazeera dot com slash c.t.c. takes you straight to our page and there you'll find individual ports links even entire episode speed to catch up on. but that's it for this edition of counting the cost in doha i'm adrian finighan of the whole team here thanks for being with us the news on al-jazeera is next. made on al-jazeera. as the world's biggest democracy goes to the polls we focus on the economic challenges facing india and the rise of ultranationalist a new series

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foods yet dan working. i'm sam is a dam in dar with a look at the headlines here in al-jazeera now to reuters journalists who were jailed in men have been released under a presidential amnesty they were convicted in this in a case that drew international condemnation they were sentenced to seven years in prison over their investigation into men was running a crisis when i has more from bangkok. the first hint that there could be some good news in this case came early tuesday morning with an announcement that there would be another presidential amnesty involving some six and a half thousand inmates to be released but this was the third amnesty in the past couple of weeks so.