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A historic summit between the leaders of North and South Korea has raised the prospect of a formal peace treaty by the end of this year.

After decades of military standoff between the two sides, their leaders made a declaration of peace and promised a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

Such a possibility would spell big investment opportunities on the peninsula, according to Jim McCafferty, head of Asia Equity Research at Nomura Securities.

"I think the priorities of North Korea may be changing and may be shifting towards economic development and for that reason, engagement with neighbouring countries makes a great deal of sense."

The sanctions on North Korea are "beginning to bite", explains McCafferty. "North Korea historically had depended on subsidies from Russia and China, and those subsidies were largely withdrawn back in the early 1990s. Since then, North Korea has had to engage in some form of communication with western countries to try to get some form of subsidies. The sanctions have been in place now for over a year and they're hitting quite hard, so that's the reason perhaps they're engaging with other countries."

A reunification opportunity, which excites the market, "is really a very, very small probability," says McCafferty, and adds: "What we do see as a more likely scenario that North Korea becomes subsidised or helped by western countries, not just South Korea."

If a denuclearisation option is achieved, "there might be some economic benefits that other countries can provide and with that provision, the South Korean companies, Japanese companies, Chinese companies could be involved in some reconstruction of North Korea, which as a country has not kept up with others in the region and is quite backward in terms of simple GDP (gross domestic product) per head mechanics."

He says that in terms of the size of the economy, at one point in the 1970s, North Korea's GDP per head was at a parity with South Korea, but "that's just no longer the case. North Korea has an opportunity - with 25 million people. That population could be engaged as a labour force and involved in areas like textiles and getting opportunities which are currently in place with ASEAN countries, such as Vietnam or Myanmar."

"So, potentially there is opportunity for South Korean capital to merge with relatively inexpensive North Korean labour and combine certain areas of real-cost manufacturing - that's where perhaps opportunity is."

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called for unity in the Gulf region during a visit to Saudi Arabia, his first foreign trip in his new role as the top US diplomat.

"Ultimately [the Saudis] are going to have to respond," Al Jazeera's senior political analyst said.

Marwan Bishara added that if the GCC crisis is solved, it will not restore relations to what they were before.

"It will not go back to what it was before June 2017, it might be a cold peace of a sort," Bishara said.

"The warmth we have seen before, we are not going to see again," he added.

The stakes are getting higher in the global oil market.

Nearly one year ago, producers were worried about too much crude, but now, the fear is that demand will outstrip supply. That prospect has boosted oil prices to their highest level since 2014.

The International Energy Agency says global demand for oil could grow to nearly 100m barrels a day this year.

But when it comes to the price of oil in 2018, there a number of things to consider.

One of the biggest issues is the likelihood of the United States pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal. President Donald Trump has until May 12 to decide whether to bring back sanctions that were eased in exchange for curbs on Tehran's nuclear programme. That could keep Iranian exports of around two million barrels a day from flowing.

Additionally, oil output is falling in Venezuela, which is the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) biggest producer in Latin America. The political and economic turmoil there has cut crude production to around 1.5m barrels a day.

Less oil from Iran or Venezuela makes it easier to keep production targets between OPEC and non-OPEC in place. This is something Donald Trump isn't happy about. "Looks like OPEC is at it again," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Oil prices are artificially Very High! No good and will not be accepted!"

Before the Tweet, Saudi Arabia said it wants oil prices to be between $80-100 a barrel.

"That would not be of benefit to the US and I think this is the first warning given by the president to OPEC to not allow the prices to run too high", Olivier Jakob, managing director at Petromatix, a Swiss-based independent research group specialised in the oil markets, told Al Jazeera.

"From the president's side, he does not really want to return to the time of $100 [a barrel] oil that we had under Obama. The higher oil prices could start to be a concern for the consumer confidence in the US, and with the geopolitical agenda in the Middle East he also doesn't want oil prices to run too high."

If the US pulls out of the Iranian nuclear deal, "the impact of the sanctions would not be as large as the previous round of sanctions because the US would be alone," says Jakob. "So you should see a shift of Iranian oil exports going more to the east, and the exports of Iran towards Asia have already started to increase. So I think Iran is probably going to discount its crude oil in order to keep the customers in Asia that are less sensitive to the potential sanctions from the US."

While the US is considering sanctions on Iran, it also is eyeing sanctions on Venezuela whose crude oil industry has taken a hit in recent years.

"Right now, Venezuela is suffering as much as Iran was suffering when it was under sanctions. The US right now is in the best position in the sense that without hard sanctions on Venezuela, the country is already feeling the impact of it ... So to add additional sanctions on top of the current drop of production and exports from Venezuela is not fully necessary because Venezuela by itself is restraining its revenue potential", according to Jakob.

We also focus on the Korean peace dividend:

The Korean peace dividend: A historic summit between the leaders of North and South Korea has raised the prospect of a formal peace treaty by the end of this year. And that could mean big investment opportunities on the peninsula, as James Bays reports exclusively from Pyongyang.

Jim McCafferty, head of Numura's Asia Research, discusses what a peace dividend would mean for the Korean peninsula.

Nepal's disaster recovery: Thousands of survivors of a massive earthquake in Nepal three years ago are still living in makeshift shelters. They say the government has not lived up to its promise to provide them with permanent homes, as Subina Shrestha reports from Kathmandu.

South Sudan copyright laws: Writers and musicians in South Sudan are struggling with the absence of copyright laws in the country. And that's forced many to produce their material abroad, as Hiba Morgan. Reports from Juba.

Kids versus robots: The World Economic Forum is predicting that machines will replace a fifth of all human jobs over the next 20 years. Divya Gopalan went to a learning centre in Hong Kong that's teaching kids to stay ahead of robots.

In December 2017, former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was seen being dragged off a roof in Kiev and bundled into a police van.

He was freed shortly afterwards, when supporters ripped the doors off the van to free him, before being arrested again and later deported from Ukraine.

Saakashvili was once widely recognised as an advocate for reform and democracy thanks to his anti-corruption reforms and tough stance towards Russia.

Now, he is a stateless politician, living under temporary asylum in the Netherlands.

Saakashvili became President of Georgia in 2004. After his party were defeated in the 2013 elections, he left for Ukraine, where he supported the 2014 revolution and gave up his Georgian passport to become a Ukrainian citizen.

Saakashvili dismisses accusations that he was heavy handed in suppressing opposition during this second term as Georgian president, pointing instead to progress that was made under his government.

"Georgia was a failed country, you cannot make a failed country through Scandinavian methods, overnight, something like Sweden or Norway".

"My reforms survived my presidency ... most of it is still there, so from that standpoint: public services, absence of corruption, safety, I left a good legacy and a legacy that is still intact."

Saakashvili also rubbished an EU report's claim that he was responsible for Georgia's 2008 war with Russia due to his 'penchant for acting in the heat of the moment'.

"There is only one choice when your country gets attacked by a hundred times bigger neighbour: either to surrender, or to fight and we chose not to surrender," he says.

He says the Russian threat he was responding to is even more concerning today, due to a lack of strong leadership in Europe.

"The problem is the lack of leadership ... we have just tacticians in Europe ... nobody wants to assume responsibility, as a result, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin (is) playing them around.

"It's not about Putin being so strong, it's about these kind of leaders being so weak.

"There is no leadership in Europe today. It's so bleak. We see half-engagement, semi-engagement ... if Europeans continue to be as weak as this, we are not going to avoid big war in Europe."

Saakashvili was initially embraced by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who made him governor of Odessa province, but the relationship soon soured, with Saakashvili resigning in 2016 after accusing Poroshenko of corruption.

"I left from the governorship when I felt that we were no longer in the business of reforming the country," he tells Al Jazeera.

"Staying there would be just trying to whitewash something that cannot be justified - wide scale corruption and oligarchic rule," he tells Al Jazeera.

"(Poroshenko) was not serious about the reforms. Ultimately, he had to make a choice, whether to get into Ukraine's historic textbooks or to be higher on Forbes' billionaire's list.

"He decided to get into (the) billionaire's list, rather than the textbooks."

Shortly after his resignation, Saakashvili announced plans to create a new political force in Ukraine, but his citizenship was revoked and he was sent to Poland.

Meanwhile, a court in Georgia found him guilty of abuse of power in connection with a 2006 murder case. He was sentenced to three years in prison in absentia.

While in Ukraine, a prosecutor accused Saakashvili of having connections with a suspected criminal gang, led by Ukraine's former president Viktor Yanukovych.

Saakashvili says he's still running his parties in both Georgia and Ukraine from the Netherlands and, despite personal threats made by Putin, he plans to continue with his anti-Russia, anti-corruption programme.

"I was asked by Dutch police whether I needed special protection and I told them 'no'.

"Whatever happens, I've made my impact on the history of this region, nobody can dispute that.

"If Putin wants to physically get me, I don't think any bodyguards can protect me anyway".

The saga of the US elections continues as the Democrats file suit against Russia, Trump and WikiLeaks. Plus, the news network telling the Rohingya story.

Democrats versus Wikileaks and the implications for US media

It's been almost a year and a half since the election of Donald Trump and yet the opposition Democrats still haven't moved on. Last week, the party filed a lawsuit over the hacking and publishing of emails from the Democratic National Committee - the DNC - in 2016.
The defendants in the suit are the Russian government, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. Suing WikiLeaks - a news organisation - for publishing leaked material, when it is hardly the only news outlet to do so, could set a troubling precedent for press freedom.

On our radar

Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Flo Phillips about the Egyptian government's reaction to an imprisoned photographer winning a UN Press Freedom prize; and how the historic Korean summit was covered, live.

Reporting Myanmar's Rohingya story

Since the military campaign against Myanmar's Rohingya minority began 8 months ago almost three quarters of a million Rohingya, Muslims, have taken flight across the border into Bangladesh. Myanmar's government has tried to control the narrative - denying journalists access to the story - so international media and NGOs have struggled to get the facts. But there is one broadcaster that is still reporting from the inside - Rohingya Vision TV.

Run by exiled Rohingya, the network relies on undercover reporters to get information out. The stories they tell contest the Myanmar government's version of events, as well as the national media outlets that have closed ranks with the authorities.

“The movement of the street is against my office. I’m fulfilling your demands,” declared Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan as he handed in his resignation on Monday. Sargsyan’s announcement ended 11 days of anti-government demonstrations demanding his removal from office. The news of his resignation sparked celebrations across the country and around the world.

Sargsyan had been appointed prime minister this month after serving 10 years as the country's president. Critics saw the move as a Putin-style power grab since term limits forced him to step down as president in March.

The movement against Sargsyan was mostly built by opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan, who’s now calling for a snap parliamentary election.  Pashinyan and others are worried Sargsyan might still try and run things from behind the scenes given his party, the Republican party of Armenia, holds a majority in parliament.

So what’s next for Armenia? We discuss the future of the country on this episode of The Stream.

France and the United States have a long history that goes back centuries. From the American revolutionary war to the Statue of Liberty - the two countries have had strong cultural and political ties.

French President Emmanuel Macron is hoping to build on that special bond, during his three-day state visit to Washington DC.

And Donald Trump has rolled out the red-carpet.

But beyond the handshakes, smiles and lavish ceremonies, there are serious policy disagreements including the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which could threaten to put a strain on the special relationship.

Trump says he wants to withdraw from the agreement, while France and other European nations are urging him to stick with the deal.

Iran, for its part, says if the US withdraws, it too will likely abandon the agreement.

So, can Macron convince Trump to remain in the Iran deal?

Female power is a dominant theme in the Colombian-born Canadian musician Lido Pimienta's latest album "La Papessa" ("The High Priestess"), which covers issues including single motherhood, feminism and migration.

A radiant mix of traditional Latin American influences and electronic synth-pop, "La Papessa" was Pimienta's 2016 self-released breakthrough project.

The album went on to win Canada's top music honour, the Polaris Music Prize, and was the first such win for a Spanish-language album in Canada.

The Stream speaks to Lido Pimienta about the forces that drive her music.

When footage of an alleged chemical weapons attack was beamed out of Douma, Syria, it set off an outcry and lit the fuse for counterstrikes. The narrative in much of the western mainstream media echoed their own governments': a red line had been crossed, it was a transgression that could not go unpunished.

Those demanding evidence that Bashar al-Assad's government was behind the chemical attacks, the sceptics questioning the rush to launch, were given short shrift.

The question of waiting for evidence "seems to be missing from much media discussion," points out Tara McCormack, an academic at the University of Leicester. "What we have seen in Syria is footage taken by people on their mobile phones. But there does seem to be a total abandonment of any kind of critical scrutiny. An idea almost that it would be immoral to question these images. I think that's quite a serious failure on the part of a lot of western media."

A big part of this geo-political showdown is being fought out over the airwaves, and when it comes to state propaganda, Russia is contributing its share. If only their media could bring the same scrutiny to bear on the Kremlin that they do on the White House.

"The main point made in the Russian media was that there was no chemical attack, that there was no need for it and that Russia was being blamed for something it had no role in," explains Marianna Belenkaya, a Russian journalist at Kommersant newspaper.

"When the Western media talked about the chemical attack as a fait accompli, the Russian media, not just the state ones, but more liberal, balanced outlets were trying to understand what the reasons for such an attack would be. Our western colleagues don't even want to hear this kind of questioning," she adds.

Syria's civil war has claimed half a million lives and displaced millions more, but the United States and its allies have chosen to intervene, publicly, only when the fighting is alleged to have gone chemical.

Chemical weapons are politically beyond the pale. Almost 200 countries have signed the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 which outlawed their production and use.

The way allegations of chemical warfare are reported - the way it looks on screen - triggers a response. The footage is horrific, the suffering evident. And once these images turn up in Washington and other western capitals, the politics and the accepted rules of war do the rest.

According to Omar al-Ghazzi, professor of media and communications at LSE, "it is not about images specifically, it is about the politicisation of images in relation to political agendas. The attention that chemical warfare gets in relation to Syria has actually less to do with Syria than western European history and European publics. Because suffering by bombings and by barrel bombs arguably can be more damaging and kills more people."

Mutual recrimination between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, threatens to derail an historic peace accord.

The FARC-Colombia agreement closed a chapter on a wide-ranging 52-year civil conflict that took the lives of at least 220,000 people - 80 per cent of them civilians - and left nearly six million people displaced.

But the recent high-profile arrest on drugs trafficking charges of Jesus Santrich, a former FARC member and Congress member-elect who was intimately involved in the peace process, has fuelled Farc's ire.

And with FARC failing to add to its ten guaranteed congressional seats in recent legislative elections and the centre-right Democratic Centre party in the ascendancy, the November 2016 peace deal is at a critical juncture.