Has contributed to the crisis those are your headlines counting the cost is next but by. Hello im has im sick of this is counting the cost on aljazeera your weekly look at the world of business and economics this week how corrupt is your country well talk to Transparency International about the latest global rankings also this week the petro venezuela becomes the first government in history to launch its own crypto currency plus south africas new president needs to plug a hole in the nations finances as cape town faces running out of water. But despite efforts to tackle corruption around the world progress is still frustratingly slow thats according to the latest report from Transparency International its annual Corruption Perception index reveals some Alarming Trends it shows corruption is still a huge problem for two thirds of the worlds economies to the point uses a scale of zero to one hundred to rank countries where zero is highly corrupt and one hundred is very clean syria south sudan and somalia ranked lowest with scores of fourteen twelve and nine respectively new zealand cams out on top but with a score of eighty nine the index also shows that one journalist is killed every week in a highly corrupt country the best performing region is western europe with an average score of sixty six the worst performing regions are Subsaharan Africa and Eastern Europe and central asia where joining us now from burlington to talk more about this is max haywood a specialist in Money Laundering and financial secrecy at Transparency International thanks for being. So a lot of this does make for some pretty depressing reading doesnt it not a whole lot of transparency here why is that well the index that we published yesterday evening shows that you know out of one hundred eighty countries around the world two thirds of them are below the midpoint of the scale so scoring below fifty points this means that they have severe to you know quite considerable corruption risks in these countries and what this means is that the promises the governments have been making in the last year signing up to different commitments signing up to International Agreements are not really being put in place yet and if we if we zero in on some of these countries we look at the United States for example the biggest economy in the world and yet they are ranked eighteenth in this corruption index does that surprise you i mean whats behind that well what we see happening in the in the u. S. Is a growing awareness of the influence of money in politics of the capacity of powerful interests to influence politics through Campaign Donations through supporting different types of political advertising through lobbying and so theres growing awareness about the influence and and the negative effect that this has on politics and through that on the lives of everyday people so this is definitely one of the main reasons for concern in the u. S. Right now and if we look at china as worlds second biggest economy in the world they rank seventy seventh on this index a lot of room for improvement there absolutely one of the things that were looking at across the board this year is the link between growing corruption and growing perceptions of corruption and the lack of Civil Liberties the lack of a free press and we see this in several countries around the world where theres been a backslide because free press and free and free media is essential to hold government so account without journalists asking questions and looking at data and informing the public about what governments are doing on their behalf its very very difficult to get to get control of corruption so we see several countries also in the e. U. For example you hungry. Well its been a clear backslide in terms of civic liberties and freedom of the press which are essential to fight corruption and theres a lot of that what you talked about there going on in the middle east if we because this is one of the regions that use highlighted as as an area of particular interest just talk to us a little bit about that whats whats behind whats going on there absolutely this is a reason were out of the twenty one countries that we covered nineteen are below the fifty points in the mid scale so so really well well below other countries and other reasons in the rankings and this is again linked to the capacity of elites and powerful interests to take decisions which are not in the interests of the general population and at the same time a crackdown or lack of freedom for the press for Civil Society so actually ask questions of those in power so when you look at those two things combined its not surprising that you know that the perceptions of public corruption in the region have not improved its all in recent years and in some cases have actually gone backwards and this is of course a list that your organization publishes every year yet its coming not so long after the revelations of the of the panama papers. And all of the stories of money Money Laundering and corruption that was going on on there weve had quite a lot of this in the news so on the face of it this might look quite depressing but if we try to put a positive light on this it is it is a good thing that that the organizations like yours and the news media are shining shining a light on whats going on here absolutely so for us the panel of papers in the poetess papers were actually really positive developments because they showed the power of the media and of large states its actually illustrated a very high scale what is going on and how corruption is actually working its no longer something that is seen as you know abstract so that people are powerless to do something about theres been hundreds of investigations that came out of the of the one. Papers and people who are on trial right now and so again thanks to the power of the media and the power of Civil Society were seeing how this can actually help to turn the tide and citizens are aware of this we did a large survey last year which showed that over half of citizens worldwide really believe that they have the power to change something so we really hope that journalists will continue to do their jobs and be allowed to do their jobs and to work with the data thats becoming increasingly available to hold governments and the powerful to account good to speak with you max hayward joining us from berlin thank you how the number of venezuelans escaping Economic Hardship to neighboring colombia keeps rising thats despite tighter border controls asunder and yet he reports from kuta on the colombia venezuela border in this Central Plaza in kuta hundreds of venezuelans stand in line for up to seven hours they wait for a Wire Transfer that will help them and were the economic crisis back home kadam indias troubles to disco long been bordertown every month she needs the money her son sends from the children to buy medicine no i dont think so that everything he might think that we are happy to come here he receives a little money instead its very sad knowing that we cant afford the basic things we need its painful to be here but its a sacrifice we have to make its an excruciating but essential wait in a swell and scam to receive remittances at home due to the Exchange Controls imposed by the government of president Nicolas Maduro they used the money to buy basic items for ever more often bus tickets to reach those who already left in search of a better life now the power if they would leave us that im here to go to korea with my son my husband is already there he saved for fifteen months to pay for our chickens we wanted to stand venezuela but its becoming impossible with the upcoming president ial elections and we are the worried theyll shut the corridor so we decided it was time to go home and in this will only be gratian experts say a shift of depopulation. She has left the country in the last two years something colombia but increasing numbers continue to other south american countries where it might be easier to find work the number of buses leaving this station for the ecuadorian border the next stop on these migrants journey has passed from six or seven a week to more than seventy every single day but even that is not enough and some people after wait up to four days for a ticket. Families struggle to save enough for just one bus ticket but when its time to separate the heartache is palpable. That i mean this sold all they could to get their eldest son daniel a passport in a bus fare to my gentiva. What i make is not enough to feed us its sad because we used to have this whole food and jobs but not more thats why my son is leaving and my heart is broken no one can resist forever thats why he must go a seam there repeats itself with painful regularity as each by steak sauce and more families are torn apart by me says city leaving behind a sad trail of trauma in tears all this week venezuela became the first ever government in history to launch its own cryptocurrency its called the petro because its price is tied to the countrys oil reserves yet at this stage its still very unclear what technology or exchange will be used or how it will be managed president Nicolas Maduro hopes it will help the nearly bankrupt country sidestep economic sanctions and increase imports of vitally needed goods well joining us now from new castle in the u. K. Is under arrest is a Senior International economist at pantheon of macro economics thanks very much for being with us so first of all is this petro currency something that can work or is it as many analysts are saying just an act of desperation from the venezuelan government here i think that the government. Is going to. Very challenging for the government open as well or to raise the money note that the oil industry is collapsing Oil Pollution has fallen more than a third over the last few years so i think there is going to be very change for the government to raise that capital explain to us a little bit more what exactly this link is between petrol and oil and why you feel its not going to work well the government has said that is going to link that with the value of the. Oil in the barrel of oil but you have to know many things first of all the government is the one that is controlling the market in venezuela so they can decide at what level that petro currency will trade because of the they would put devalue of oil and also they will start to decide whos going to mind that chorus over all is very centralized which is a against the idea of the korean says i think there is an american investors or European Investor who will struggle to get a more in this project and are they exposed to sanctions risk the u. S. Government has already said that. But on top of the i think that you know that all the commodities are trade in u. S. Dollars because they invested in this chorus and the u. S. Government but nobody will trust in the in this kind of chorus in the Paper Currency because the National Government has for example has default in many of these bonds of the last few years economies collapsing so i think that it will be very challenging for them to get some trust in these kinds of projects and if this does happen to be successful at all would we see other countries using crittur currencies to try and get around sections like myanmar and cuba for example or the con economies will probably try to do the same thing but if they have a good track record and this is not a case of venezuela been is there but its an economy before them in many of his. Once the economy is collapsing the inflation least running about two thousand percent growing now unemployment is up about twenty five percent so i dont think that any investor will try to bet in this kind of and therefore under suburbia thanks very much for being with us thank you for having me still to come on counting the cost and wayne hay with a rare look at the second dam being constructed on the lower mekong river as laos pushes ahead with its goal of becoming the battery of Southeast Asia. For first the middle east news which could signal a change in the way gas flows from new fields in the Eastern Mediterranean sea this week an Israeli Energy Company Announced a fifteen billion dollars deal to export natural gas to egypt cypress two said it was nearing a supply agreement so whats this all about well egypt once it becomes selfsufficient in gas wants to transform itself into an Energy Export hub on europes doorstep a fast food giant k. F. C. Was left counting its chickens on monday it was forced to close hundreds of stores in the u. K. After it ran out of poultry products the chicken crossed the road just not to our restaurants k. F. C. Said on twitter care she recently switched distributors to d. H. L. From bidvest at the end result job losses at bidvest no chicken at k. F. C. And unhappy customers of the company said the shortage will be sorted soon now twenty six of the worlds leading experts in emerging technologies are warning of the dangers of Artificial Intelligence from cambridge in the United Kingdom emma hayward reports. It is the stuff of Science Fiction or at least it used to be a computer able to master an ancient chinese board game without human help to win every time and a truck that drives to itself computers umbertos powered by Artificial Intelligence now leading a demick so warning not to put the brakes on ai but that the technology is increasingly being used for malicious purposes for political or financial gain to extort and to gain influence Cyber Attacks on infrastructure as weve seen in ukraine attacks on computers in hospitals manipulation people for example weve seen some. Attempts to manipulate political elections in the us and in europe recently now those have been varying degrees of effectiveness with the techniques we have today but Artificial Intelligence will allow new types of Cyber Attacks that might be more capable than we had before very safe. From health care to walk their machine based thinking is revolutionizing the way we live exposing us to the benefits and the risks the robot here has been designed to pick up these little bricks and put them back on the green mass now this is just a Laboratory Setting but in five or ten years time it could be developed to work on a construction site or support in the design or wouldnt when the technology hijacked the reports authors a calling on governments and the industry itself to do more to protect us from all the pitfalls experts warned of the serious consequences its absolutely right that we issue warnings where they are because the capabilities of the possibilities for it going wrong are absolutely they could be actually tragic we need to be able to get to grips with this now ai is clearly here to stay and staying one step ahead of those who want to abuse it will be a constant challenge. South africas president Cyril Ramaphosa says tough measures are necessary to repair the economy and his first budget published this week contains some unpopular changes value added tax will go up to fifteen percent for the first time in more than twenty years for me the miller reports from johannesburg. It was months of protests like these that often turned violent that put Free Education on the governments agenda. Where not took part in protests that began in twenty fifteen and continued last year part of the reason the protest happened that the people who get into the system are themselves condemned in condemned to whether or not they finish because if you cant paint in the first year confidential degree of confidence or degree you cant get a job now the government to set aside five billion dollars to fund Free Education phasing in free also ups or dies education over five years the plan announced in the budget speech targets poor and working class households Free Education is one of the main priorities this year south africa has an Unemployment Rate of more than twenty six percent there has been a slight improvement in the past year but what is of most concern to many here is that more than a third of people under the age of thirty five dont have jobs. The budget speech didnt however say much about job creation instead focusing on increasing government revenue by hiking value added tax and cutting spending by eight billion dollars over three years government has made significant changes to the fiscal framework first date. New Text Messages raise an additional thirty six billion linden to in the eighteen nineteen mainly through a higher vet rate and below inflation that just means to personally income tax brackets. The government is facing a balancing act of trying to raise money to cut spending all the while protecting the poor its promising to raise social grants but also increase the fuel levy making transport more expensive class war here is getting intense now weve seen this country rise to the highest level of inequality for wealth and income in the world and the World Economic forum rates our workers the angriest Pricewaterhouse Coopers regularly rates our businesses as the most corrupt they have the fifth highest profit rate in the world as about africa works to further improve its economy it is however battling some uncertainty within its finance department is much speculation that the finance minister may be on his way out of the physic nation of president Jacob Zuma Malusi Gigaba too has been accused of corruption and outside influence in government decisions well joining us now from london is john ash born africa economist at Capital Economics thanks for being with us so when you strip away all the politics whats the biggest economic challenge facing south africa right now. Well there are a lot of them but the problem that the budget was trying to deal with is the lords fiscal deficit so in the last budget pronouncement we had which was not tobar the finance minister admitted that the deficit was much larger than people had assumed and it was going to stay quit large over the coming years and this budget was an attempt to roll that back and to create and intention at least to narrowing that deficit by sort of twenty twenty twenty one and income inequality is something thats been much talked about around the world. And its just a bigger problem in south africa right now you have very well developed cities and hinterlands around them that are not so well developed have what whats the governments doing to address that should they be doing more to address that income inequality as you say a huge problem in the world but probably worse since that africa than anywhere else thats a promise at the heart of all of that for his economic problems and of course its political and also one of the big policies that was announced in the last president who only resigned last week was an effort to make education more accessible and so spending fifty billion around on making University Fees waived for students from low income backgrounds thats one of the ways of trying to address this which is through education there certainly others that it is a huge social grants program for employed people. But education seems to be the tack that theyre taking at the moment an effort to deal with these gaping problems that they have in the country and weve got a National Debt South African National Debt that is ballooning unemployment is close to thirty percent there one of its major cities cape down is facing massive water crisis were talking about i mean why are we century talking about an economic emergency it will in some ways actually the worst from a from a purely Economic Perspective probably came last year and in twenty fifteen so there are some reasons purely from a Growth Perspective the things that i think the think that things have have changed gear a little bit because the unemployment problem nuts and heartless has been that high for a long time this isnt a new. Yes the situation for south africa quite heartbreakingly this is normal for south africa and so that thats been rolling along in the background for some time now the drought in cape town as you say is a serious concern but there are signs recently that things might be improving the chances of actually to cut off water entirely seems of receded at least for the meantime and how can you have more inclusive Economic Growth in south africa or that the big problem she said is unemployments of about thirty percent of people are unemployed on the official metric its probably thirty five percent if you include people who have given up looking for work and those people are by vast majority of black South Africans whove been excluded from the the workforce really from the formal economy so if that cant be dealt with then theres no way fixing any other problems either and the solution that probably is education but where i would disagree with the current government is i think its probably more in basic education than it is in University Education john ashton thanks for being with us thank you having me and the first dam on the lower me kong river in South East Asia may start generating electricity earlier than expected the controversial saya bori dam is in laos and the communist government there says it needs the project to improve the countrys economy but many who rely on the river say not enough research has been done on the Environmental Impact wayne hay gained rare access to the site. This is one of the most unique places on the mekong river just before it flows from laos into cambodia it disperses becoming eleven kilometers wide and creating thousands of channels and islands the mekong was the largest inland fishery in the world but in this part of the river those who rely on it for food and income Say Something is changing because when it did number of fish is decreasing to cheer it seems like they might be staying deep or for some reason i think there is too much noise in the reef or. Something part of the answer could lie a short distance from where fish is in one of the channels a dam is being built as the lao Government Works towards its goal of becoming the battery of Southeast Asia while china operates six dams on the upper make on the dawn so hong is just the second being built on the lower reaches both are in laos and the government has plans for at least seven more this is a relatively small project but is attracted some of the strongest criticism downstream from laos cambodia and vietnam both of which had been calling for a moratorium on the construction of dams on the main stream of the mekong river will seeing what laos is doing cambodia has given up on that now and is forging ahead with its own plans to build at least two dams on the make kong one of which will be in the province just across the border from here. Neighboring countries had criticized last for not being transparent enough about dawn song and the potential trans boundary impacts its being built on one of the only channels in the area that fish can migrate up and down stream year around seventy percent and. Then. Sell abstracting my question now would mean. And give up their stuff and the whole region. The developers and the government say theyre widely and deepening other channels to allow fish to swim through theyre also conducting daily surveys of fish stocks in the area which they say arent being adversely affected. In international. Company to study and. I have been a good steak on. Laos is leading the race to harness the power of the lower mekong and generate income its a race that opponents now acknowledge they cant stop and can only hope to slow it down and that is our show for this week remember you can get in touch with us by tweeting me x. Has a seeker and do use the hash tag the c. D. C. When you do or drop us an email counting the cost of aljazeera dot net is our address but theres more for you on line at c. N. N. Dot com slash. Take you straight to our page which has individual reports links and entire episodes for you to catch up on. That is it for this edition of counting the cost and has a seeker from the whole team here thanks for joining us the news on aljazeera is next. The story of one of the most successful p. R. Campaigns in the us. Study after study has demonstrated that israeli perspectives dominate American Media coverage what part of this can you get through your thick head is hamas a terrorist organization the only thing that youre going to say is what we want and if you dont say it were not to let you speak it would be very hard for ordinary americans to know that theyre being deceived the occupation of the American Mind at this time on aljazeera. Discover a wealth of Award Winning programming from around the world. To nation challenge your perceptions if you were to design a propaganda system you could not build a better plan than facebook all full documentaries debates and discussions this country that was once that the wealthiest in the region what went wrong how did it get to this point aljazeera. We are going to announce the biggest step in the monkey. Decades activists in seats of government and we didnt want to be part of this institution and all we really didnt want technologically challenging politics and implementing direct democracy hope a source code to use the freedom for everyone to look we are innovators we are activists we are. Talking madrid at this time and im just you know new yorkers are very receptive. Because it is such an International City they are very interested in that global perspective that aljazeera provides. Russias president orders a humanitarian corridor in eastern cotto where a u. N. Cease fire has failed to stop the tax. Cut that im julie with donald this is live from london also coming up warnings that famine could read