A sixty five year old died from cancer last week as the top stories the stream is coming up next to that. Ok and your in the stream today were looking at the situation a. B. C. Data is the country facing economic collapse so we have a new austerity budget ongoing political tensions and many citizens are unhappy right now we are live on you tube you can send us your questions or comments and be part of the show too and imo they could be a lot of street protests in sudan have mostly been quiet and theres been a virtual media blackout but the conversation is extensive online heres a look at just some of the biggest hashtags were following about these austerity measures and protests today on the protests continues sudan twenty eight thousand detainees and at the sudanese regime continues arrests now are you in sudan or want to weigh in on this Program Tweet us do stream. They have been called the bread protests anti a stereotype demonstrations began in january after the government of president Omar Al Bashir announced the twenty eighteen budget and further economic cuts the prices of basic household staples especially flour have steadily rising and sent people into the streets several subsidies like wheat pharmaceuticals where human ated by the government and the colosseum has been devalued to improve the local economy officially one us dollar is equal to eighteen sudanese pounds but on officially on the black market the u. S. Dollar is estimated to be selling for more than double the price the government has been investing in military as it continues fighting on several fronts for south qualified and the blue nile states on sunday the government released more than eighty activists detained during the protests in a move ordered by the president but dozens remain in prison. Unarmored. We will work hard to get rid of the reasons that have led to demonstrations and detention we will be in contact with all parties concerned we will keep and maintain the human rights and we will put an end to Political Polarization in the country for the sake of our nation and one of those detained is is smile his daughter tells us that her father is a retired sixty eight year old engineer whos living on a limited income he took part in an anti austerity protest on january sixteenth and has been in custody sense with no news his daughter has started a social Media Campaign and she sent us this video comment we demand from the Sudanese Government to release him immediately and as they have promised us all other detainees what is happening right now is unjust it is illegal and gives their human rights that are hard to rest of the sudanese people is not the solution to the economical issues and challenges facing the country right now. Well joining us today to be out of that idea obeyed is an advisor to sudans minister of information the governments point of view will also be represented by mackey mogen to be the media counselor at the Sudanese Embassy in washington d. C. He was unable to join us but sent a video comment with us on sat is a sit down political commentator and a ph d. Student and George Washington university and hard to admit mahmoud is a sudanese activists also and hard to mubarak is a pharmacist welcome to the stream everyone i want to start with some of the personal stories that were getting from people in sudan and abroad who are sharing what life is like for them and for their family members this is a good read on twitter she says rent has more than doubled in our Apartment Building with landlords requesting board a six month advance to compensate for any expected decline in the value of currency heres one more personal story i meant ill direct this to you this is mohammed who joined us in our show december twenty sixth. Protests he writes for regular citizens point of view the prices took a rocket to the moon daily means are hard to meet and you need to have three hundred percent more money to get what you used to the countrys imports cost higher he also goes on to say that for example the simplest example is bread in two thousand and eight one pound is twenty pieces of bread and now its one so you read stories like when you hear stories like what do you think has changed since the last time you were on the show which was also that same show in twenty sixteen so i think there are a couple of things that have changed but the most important one is definitely the lifting of u. S. Sanctions when we were here last time the government spokesman was focused on the removal of u. S. Sanctions and blaming the sanctions for all of the Economic Issues in sudan the sanctions were formally removed in september last year but ended up happening was actually a trend going in. The opposite direction instead of the economy improving we saw the economy get much worse and thats because the government was not planning ahead and dealing with what the result of the sanction was going to be the sudanese economy was actually insulated for a good majority of the time that the sanctions were in place and the government was able to control the money supply now the government was expecting the inflow investment of investments into the country that didnt happen because nobody is willing to invest in the current geo political environment sudan but it actually also helped people take their money out so now people are able to withdraw money out of sudan much more easily putting a huge strain on the currency and on the economy overall so as long as the government is not able to actually deal with that problem its not going to be able to resolve the crisis at the moment someone here i know says the very first tweet on your twitter. Account right now is one from us and says i knew it would get bad so i withdrew all my savings we have to depend on acquaintances to bring as many cell of the my mother from abroad it is unavailable in sudan and it is critical maggie said how are you dealing with this new austerity budget what does it actually mean for you when you go shopping. Ok to comment on the fact that shes finding difficulty getting her medicine or her mothers medicine rather than with a very common problem. The Dollar Exchange rate for medicine imports which caused. The problems last year in the civil disobedience it was the movement of the Exchange Rate from six point one to put to fifteen point eight. Member two thousand and sixteen and government bodies responsible for pricing policies. Said i retracted the prices at that time and he said that they will control and maintain it but they were not able to do so because the problem is not is not mean it cannot be solved in this way. It is actually a problem of currency if the current rate of four or imports of medicine. As twenty most of these. Seventeen and today is temporary as it so very few thousand repeated sounds as at thirty sudanese pounds and that resulted in a problem for employers. If they ever bit of currency the central bank is not providing them with courtesy they have to buy cars from the black market to purchase medication as a result of all of this there became an instability in the supply of medicine a lot of importance items have become scarce and unavailable. Some there are no commuter car ready they want me for those important items at the counts castle unavailable like what for instance. For instance today we have a few life saving i life saving i can buy cuban album hes arts are important lifesaving medications are not available. A lot of the Important Companies face a problem purchasing the dullards their rates much higher than that used for pricing of medications which makes them shy in investing a reinvesting in repurchasing medication to supply it to the. To the pharmacies. Because of that it became and became a problem of scarcity of lack of availability as a homicide it was the issue of sanctions was always used as an excuse but this is not the case the sanctions have been dismissed and yes the problem remains and its getting worse by the day and were just being robbed. Is the advice to suzannes meaning of make sure and. Can you explain to the International Audience why that new austerity budget. Yes actually i am not there now that is. A problem with the National Congress but. It should be. Well actually the. Year two thousand. Not concealable improvement. Two thousand. And six to. Two thousand in a lot of activities will be provided for. Now. Because. This information reflected on. The prices of the commodity. Material and a lot of. Communities for the people the government now is doing a lot of i think that. The dollar is slightly low actually. Read about forty pounds but now its down. The price of one of the pounds and i think that. The government may be. Or. Will be about five hours according to the plan of the government and they think that the government took this. Economy. To lift you know subsidies from. Those that they want this economy to be the Reality Companies because if i cannot select a government that the government right now in amman actually events or invited any sort of excuses for its mismanagement there is a one hundred seventy three billion billion pound budget right now and that budget itself has a sixty four percent deficit the government is saying its going to actually cover that deficit with taxes and its actually a. In able to do that because there is a lot of shadow spending thats happening within the government and unless that is actually addressed the prices are going to continue to rise the currencies continue to deteriorate so its a sad spending to us so basically a lot of what actually ends up being spent is opaque we dont know how much the government is spending in reality we get a certain percentage of for example spending on the military on security officially i think in this budget its twenty four percent but according to a lot of very well respected sources thats as high as seventy percent and as we know is any authority and regime its number one for us and of the entire budget exactly on security so with as many of the software ten regimes we know that there is actually a propensity just to defend themselves and to continue to be in power and women absolutely asked that i took up exactly what that meant for example the budget of twenty eight in a father noticed in not least if you go on the website of the finance minister now the budget is not or that he had and also the twenty seven point. The government is intentionally blocking our access to information it is extremely hard for us to understand the situation what had happened but from the village a lot of mistakes are made about what the government is doing is applying certain measures that it thinks it will save it from this hyper inflation this and but sudan has been in a state of. Iraq time now and even during the oil years before the suppression of south sudan of the independence of south sudan. Like imus it did get spending in army in the militia got its militias roaming the country and i know you have this. Crazy theres no fixed number for it but yeah so that and what you are referencing its really actually what the majority of our community is also a. They think that too much of the budget is being allocated to the military so this isnt a bash it says the new budget is strongly catering to the Security Industry and the Productive Industries such as other culture dont receive any support to flourish another person eman highly writes and that the Budget Allocation is higher than i believe is being said and any money used for military spending is causing this issue to get deeper and deeper sudans continued investment and war comes at a time when the sudanese pound is at a record low against foreign currencies so im going to direct these to you people say that the budget has too much military spending in it whats your response to that you know actually the budget now is that its two actual number that. You know the result of this actually. A lot of amount of money to. Be will result not an hour or two more or some time so that for that should be actually really know what the money but i dont really really a lot to do to military or security or at least not into money this is this is all not for a share of the economy. Actually there are part of the. The budget that already but you want to come a little bit with the people i think that now the Government Holding a lot of because children are not sorry im going to jump in only want to only look at it. So id like to see just how tight the man because i know that you are not happy but i cant hear your exact words perhaps that what were trying to look at his claim that its money that has been allocated towards production im asking what money where were you. A father know that its not exports the government its barely a country of bill exporting anything to bring in u. S. Dollars into the country whats whats been happening in the past years is that you have been influx of importing of goods that are catering to a very Small Community basically whats happening right now is the government basically what they went on and denied the people even their money even the middle class now limited to their own money in the banks which if it indicates anything it indicates a certain kind of corruption happening in how can a bank deny me my money which i have in a current account i cant even with draw my money right now because according to the government is sticking it out and put in its own assets is that the money you mean im sorry i cut you think im funny i think thats a very good point because right now what we see is that people have actually lost confidence in the fiscal system there was a huge run on banks several weeks ago and it continues to today and the government. Has actually issued several directives that are contradicting each other and we see the central bank one day trying to create some sort of fiscal policy that is trying to resolve the situation and then the political actors the you know the political apparatus comes in and says no this is this is untenable and in fact when the. It stopped allowing people to withdraw their money it said that were going to have some sort of fiscal monitoring or fiscal tightening but at the same time within less than two days it came and said actually were going to continue to print money at the same rate which is going to obviously drive inflation to go up so there is a contradiction between the economists within the government and the politicians within the government unless that is actually addressed in the country is actually just going to continue down the slide rather i want to show our audience this from the republic of sudan the council of ministers big headline here Prime Minister reassured the flow of basic commodities for citizens how are you doing that hows that going. Hiring showing that people get basic commodities and they can if you will have human rights of the. People. And really the rising price of your committee. But really i think that the prices but there is no shortage of. The prices because these prices are. Not literally by the people. Government. To. Those who are looking into all of. The black market or to. A lot of. Different. Different. People to get the commodity. Price. I want to bring in here i want to bring in just a comment that weve got live on you tube this is from Charles Meany and asked me to do the you touch on this earlier but some ahead ill throw this to you in case you can help explain a little bit more charles says why has the economy gotten worse after the sanctions were some say lifted others want to know want to know that they werent necessarily listed this is it but he was says u. S. Sanctions werent removed they were either sudan still has stifling u. S. Sanctions attachments bogus state sponsor of terrorism does it nation and only when those things sions are removed ordinary sudanese see improved Living Standards did you see any change in your life so i heard after the easing of sanctions. Not at all in fact sanctions are always used as an excuse the problem is not the sanctions the problem is failure in policy itself this is an accumulation of policy failure from the independence or separation of powers that. In two thousand and. Its a political failure and an economic failure. And in response to a comment earlier mr obvious said that the government will be subsidizing in your budget. Some of the basic money i would like to know which can lead to things are going to be subsidized and also in addition in the senate as a leak in a jet which has been released recently or rather not released to the public we do not really have to accept that but its speculated that two percent of the budget only two percent of allocated to healthcare and approximately three percent is allocated to education the rest of the budget where does it go so let me just remind you to. At read an outlet and somebody here at will with us on the stream in december twenty sixth seen at that time he said well he said this have a listen everybody would have given the government is the amount that amount of the budget that you have located through Security System i promise you to move this budget to stop investing and allow us to organize and i give you a week maybe ill give you three days and the government will be overthrown by the people because you are putting all i want to into protecting you. Because of the war because of the war that you talked about you dont want to understand the war is to side the government. So that my day you were talking to. Me and hes the media counsellor at the sydneys embassy in washington d c he said do you want me to organize lets organize you send us some pictures let me show them to our audience here on my laptop what are we seeing right here. What were seeing is the aftermath of the press conference that the government called for the prison of corporate or prison when they announced that theyre releasing the protective detainees so we had the families and friends of the detainees we got there at the prison anticipating our loved ones to come out but it turned out that its all just a show a media showed as they only released approximately thirty persons and they deny they deny their research so the families and friends of the site that were staying were not moving an inch unless we see our loved ones this happened spontaneously but its in fact its a result it added to the of the past year the people have the protests have been speaking up because the circle of anger has expanded you pick this government its now creating enemies in trouble but demolish spoke of the world but yet there is a war in the periphery see the world how poor the economic what everyone is really concerned about it how to get about their education how to change food and so i mean mahmoud i think you know i want to i want to add mahmoud i hear you there i want to hear i want to share this tweet you might agree most likely with this persons a hair says the price hike has been followed by civil unrest in which hundreds were arrested few were released and the rest are being held hostage this person says in prison according to a statement from the government now the government is represented by the us embassy here Mickey Murray says that these protests have been infiltrated by armed groups heres what he told the stream who shouldnt mix between rival movements and Political Parties are the movement and Political Parties because the public demonstration. Could be hijacked by the art of movement that they want to the top of the gene by many shias and by armed groups not by peaceful demonstration activities and you need to link deeply to the situation of sudan. So i could do that youve been following the protests online of course you have family and friends back in today and what are they telling you do they do they mesh with what mr mcguinty said absolutely not basically what were seeing on the streets here people are fed up people are tired there are families that are unable to afford basic commodities basic goods to eat to go to school the price of transport has gone up people are spending you know the measure of time is no longer a measure meant. By months but how long your salary actually lasts and not one so the reality is right now what we are seeing is the political opposition is trying to actually take advantage of this economic crisis and trying to mobilize people but the government as weve seen is actually very willing to crack down severely its arrested most of the leadership of the Political Parties people are not able to mobilize on the street to speak to write in the newspapers journalists wrested International Journalists are also have been detained for example so the government cannot come in tell us that there is a there isnt a crisis because there is a crisis you can follow the latest from sudan right here al jazeera dot com news and you can see all of the stories on aljazeera dot com as far as this conversation is concerned i have time just to thank i guess at an i pad rather sadly here thank you for being part of this conversation continues online. Take avidly. 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Although i Maryam Namazie in london his a round up of the top stories on aljazeera Syrian Government forces and their russian allies are conducting a furious assault on Eastern Ghouta this fight a growing International Outcry bombs rockets and shells have continued to rain down on the last rebel stronghold near damascus killing more than two hundred people since