Point of time more than a year ago. Things slowed down and right now there are some movements that we hope that this will put and for discourse because receipt we believe actually that gulf unity is very important for the security of the region for the stability of of the region and for for the sake of our people this needless crisis needs to. Now human Rights Groups are saying theyre worried wrangle refugees have been forced into a remote bangladeshi island government says the group of more than 1500 people will move to ease overcrowding in camps it says only those who are willing to move have actually gone but there are concerns of that being coercion involved more than a 1000000 rand guy who fled neighboring me and ma housed in the camps. U. S. President elect joe biden says the figures showing jobs growth in the country slowed last month are evidence that a Coronavirus Relief program is badly needed democrats and republicans in congress have been unable to reach a deal on this so far the u. S. Is experiencing the deadliest 3 day stretch of its outbreak more than 200000 new cases were reported on thursday with just under 3000 deaths bidens urged people to wear masks for the 1st 100 days he is in office now the United Nations has voiced concern about the situation of eritrean refugees in ethiopia is to a great province it says some of the 100000 people of thought to have fled camps during the past months conflict ethiopias government says its captured or killed most of the regions leaders or those the headlines this hour thats it for myself from the team here in london of course well see you tomorrow counting the cost is the program coming up next to stay with us. The American People have finally spoken america is our split lurkers off balance. More dangerous world is looking to extrude sanderson. With the election behind us the Republican Party dumped from the weekly take on the us politics and thats the bottom line. Theyre given al this is counting the cost on al jazeera you look at the world of business and economics this week the end of austerity the ideology of collective punishment decimating the weakest in society for the economic mismanagement and crimes of the rich and powerful may be consigned to history. And while the International Monetary fund warns of a rise in inequality due to the pandemic one leading charity says the lender of last resort is still dishing out loans that require the countries to hack back at Public Services. Before politics despite u. S. And european opposition germany pushes ahead with a gas pipeline that cements its dependence on russia but also increases germanys dominance of the rest of europe. On a countrys finances are in a mess and the lender of last resort needs to step in a bailout comes with conditions mostly draconian austerity measures but governments have also been known to implement them for ideological reasons the International Monetary fund has recognized that maybe austerity is not the best course of action and it can in fact make matters worse with bad damage the i. M. F. Now says governments should spend spend spend and not worry about the finances until a recovery is embedded some would say the death of austerity should not be mourned why well lets take a look at a few case studies. From recent history under the i. M. F. European central bank and European Union bail out greece had to take an axe to public spending the people of greece paid a heavy price seeing an increase in Child Mortality its Health Care Spending was slashed from almost 10 percent to 2008 to 8 percent in 2017 the troika had wanted spending to fall to 6 percent the Unemployment Rate remains shockingly high of 17 percent last year and the country has yet to pay off its debts 21 i. M. F. Administered bailouts have done little to spark team is economy into life for the past 3 years the economy has been in recession and the pandemic will take another huge bite out of the country economy minister Martin Boozman has blamed the i. M. F. Austerity measures for the credit crisis but argentina has managed to convince creditors to restructure 65000000000. 00 of debt and is now in talks with the i. M. F. About its 44000000000. 00 loan and after 141000000000. 00 pounds bailout of the banks in 20082 years later prisons then finance minister George Osborne introduced austerity measures to reduce the budget deficit the result was debt almost doubled to 1. 00 trillion dollars growth was anemic and the economy was 130000000000. 00 smaller a decade later more than 4000000. 00 children thats one in 4 lived in poverty and more than 1000000 people were forced to use food banks. Now there is a caviar at the end of austerity is mainly for advanced economies her control of their own currencies and can raise money and the i. M. F. Believe such countries should be able to stabilize their finances by the middle of the decade well joining me now via skype from london is Phillip Blond a political thing can and you can theologian and director of the think tank publica thank you for your time great to talk to you this is interesting advice isnt it from the i. M. F. The advice to spend to save lives and to keep the economy going but that is a huge change in contrast from the financial crisis in 2008 isnt it yeah it reminds me of john ruskins whos very strange most. Critical. Of the ones you say and he said there is no where out lines. I think thats true. The fundamental right of all the economy if you will is to allow life to flourish but if there is no there is no way out then what is the last hurrah your fathers. Choice is really saying the calling the old saying lives have the wealth the countrys. Banks protected their economy all those that have best protected human life so when they need to come from asia told its not just a bill or a factory and countries like china japan south korea i well come from that was in the intro. With our return of the great bonus brain by well the good side what im striking. Is always to understand. The. 5 little developing. That should this you austerity as a response to the carotid artery that seems like a nice sensible is. The say and really what i think they should be doing and i suspect they all sankey creating problems to allow them to call if we need to spend as well because its. Investing is. Creating this invitation for the people to stay not down which is the. Approach. To preventing viral spread that we say. Save the economy is something were going to talk to the interim director of Oxfam International about a little later in the program but i want to come back to this advice for advanced economies at least to spend spend spend this is just mean that were going to see an increase in debt and deficits which just 12 months ago would have been think about. Well you know there are different ways you i think create stat model if you are you a cut of a process all along the supply chain so you can just contract economists Christian School the fishes that truck things thing that say by that youll youll back. To increasing if youre the fabless to. Confirm that and i think birds spending route is a good instruction so essentially keep things because essentially cultivate already the states of gravity how i think about bringing back not destroying the dome and the experiences. As initiatives of supply jags because essentially men step on to cronies have safety that so and thats they support people in jobs through expending that have to support people and throughout the system we know from over the mountains of data that. People find it very very hard the longer theyre in routes assistance the farms back into the labor market back evaporating called life support so that theres enough business cooperatives to bounce back as quickly as you found and i think i think back really imperative but if you offend your whole population should the laboratory are employed with sobriety thats essentially diminishes the possibility for recovery further down the road so is this in this sense i think you are actually spending money to prevent races that made lets talk about the u. K. For a minute it was also introduced austerity for what critics been made with purely ideological reasons. To sort of shrink the state and cut Public Services now a decade on you know the number of people using food banks has risen to 1200000 according to the Trussell Trust i mean so what does that say is it just the vulnerable then who suffer whats interesting in a developed this is reference rate its the only popularity of the trunk shall we say is the liberalism discovered in the west and well past so. Essentially penalizes the work in boston that. How about the rising costs in the developing world so if you do a distribution of. Whos benefits of marriage from the last its its there is in the way i think class it is about i think they settle on the same people on actually the working classes in the west and havent really benefited from Global Brands the soul and the balance of the many during times of stack and so forth so what they send me is we introduce a styrofoam. Into a system where these people are highly vulnerable anyway after the only thing security is done with a team of lawyers and you know you can tell americans are and im not have faith. That people are not stable the poor that all im back create the. Conditions for puppets and i think the short sellers for the day to my all in the show actually it was very attractive because a price in the british that. Very last time so we didnt pass anything like precisely that or so on the sample but it went on too long it was articulate on the academic i. Q. Score high on the data states the local state so all councils and all. Public service ers same say become defensive and they didnt have a bassman in them to enable them which i think is the shame by the writing of virus crisis status to attenuate that well have to leave it there thank you so much for your time there for the phone to be presented thank you. Now while the i. M. F. Says countries do not need to introduce austerity measures or any kind of belt tightening according to oxfam the majority of the loans extended by the lender during the pandemic will require some cuts to public spending and that could force some countries to cut Public Health care pensions and jobs such as doctors and teaches over madrid vera joins me now via skype jim a is the interim executive director for Oxfam International we really appreciate your time this things unfair right if youre an advanced economy and youre already doing ok you can spend spend spend the i. M. F. Says it will be fine but if youre already struggling belt tightening will come and things could get worse. It will not work it will not work for the people i mean overseas or just found that 84 percent of the 91 i am there call it 19 loans and polish and in some cases it wont require countries to adopt top 70 measures in aftermath of the Health Crisis is a takes at least 767. 00 lower middle Income Countries from the you to 24. 00 or 70 measures could include cuts Public Services including wage freezes cats the Public Sector workers like doctors and nurses it includes increases in value of the taxes which apply to every day to look seeing food households to supervise and fall disproportionately on women and the poorest parts of the population thinking human terms i mean just when people think they can brief us or. Somebody they could be losing their access to health care for themselves or their children or resing income support having over the last jobs so it doesnt work for the poor people for the most Vulnerable People and for the poorest countries and the i. M. F. Itself has been warning of rising inequality has been warning. Of rising poverty that many countries are dependent on International Investors for money right i mean how does that work. Hes 2 sides off there off of the going on the one side it seems like the is the i. M. F. Just 2 faces research and sometimes executive. That director are saying the right things or 2 countries doing in terms of what they should be doing today i mean the n. F. L. Is saying a standard spend spend it has been calling for an inclusive real recall sounded the alarm bells on inequality peaking and saying that and then we were seeing it i mean the i. M. F. Has a Strong Research about that and yours awful stary we find when we command these these sort of research and analyses and then comes the unethical practices and as you say i mean countries need money and they need even more money now because of their often their inks and the consequence and so when it comes to the county by county practices we are seeing that loans i mean is so far away from their works and the i. M. F. Is very influential if they want to commission more requests into those laws and they will be how they asked soon are we begin to see the end of all of that underneath it will exacerbate they now find the across the world and who is we pay that for us we have to see different ways i mean we have to honor this research on the consequences of the conclusions that you cause and we definitely countries need money now where should we call it should come from that cancellation during the pandemic primes there is still too many countries that are paying more input that service than what for example we are spending in their health care it has come from a revenge bent of a commitment to their open seat 0. 7 percent of the of the g. D. P. That is 50 years now of it and its not there except for a few countries and the i. M. F. Could do more i mean they could go further and block and block these way they harvest of issuing a special drawing rights form of global currency that can be pumped into the Global Economy in times of of me because i dont need now. Im equally sure even 33. 00 trillion of the special rights which all i. M. F. Member countries will be able to access without having to repay so there are ways of doing it that are not longs we conditions ok so that is what you think the i. M. F. Could do what about the International Community what about the private sector what should it be doing you know seeing in that signing if if you think about generally speaking about the International Community they should be agreeing and going further in debt cancellation this is schemes they have done something but is not close to what should be should be done because they should include also there from or buying control from other movie that there are creditors and they should include also private sector i mean its really outrageous that now precisely in. Times i am but i would lenders have not been brought into any kind of these g. 20 deals for that cancellation as most of the governments have done so poor countries are continuing to repay their debts to reach banks and hedge funds you know now. So you have this situation where some of the worlds richest and biggest creditors and fortunes on their shareholders are cashing in checks when people in their distressed countries are lacking the basic Public Services health care right now is seriously ill should mean counseling all debt payments all rich countries would level institutions but also for private creditors like ok ive got time for one more i just want to bring this back to the reality of what this all means for people who are already struggling for knives and fanaa lee hoods right because people are going to be impacted by this. I mean all of our Research Also also shows how you got to anyone 64 countries countries including kenya or pakistan or some where they were already spending more of on repayments than in health care because the before the pandemic hit them or a part of our research to finds how far its only 22 per cent of the global war at forest who has any kind of social protection in such as a seat leave or unemployment. Protection even if it doesnt change the full. Economic system and the writing its now taxed the wages what we will be seeing is that vid this time we are thinking that even 500000000 people could go into poverty because of the pandemic and its consequences it will be even the words so it has it needs a foolish if if we are thinking about the most liberal of our most impact that by the pandemic that such those that are not only using lives but their livelihoods to ok will have lived there thank you so much for your time that instead of there there the interim executive director for Oxfam International we appreciate it thats the pleasure. Now can you dealing commercial deals from politics well thats what germany is hoping to do with the controversial nord stream pipeline that will bring in gas from russia to europes biggest economy thats despite the latest sanctions from the United States that take aim at russian pipe playing vessel academic skate which is attempting to complete the last 147 kilometers of construction but then has already said it wont bow to u. S. Pressure not to go ahead with the project despite making it more dependent on russia for the supply of energy which washington believes is a Security Threat even the poisoning of russian Opposition Leader alexina valley which many thought may be a reason for berlin to give up on the project has been brushed aside some of germanys own neighbors have imposed their own sanctions poland find russias state controlled gas giant gazprom 6500000000 euros for going ahead with the construction of the nord stream to pipeline without securing its approval. Were joining me now via skype from berlin is europe for a break europe is a senior fellow and director for central and Eastern Europe at the German Marshall Fund of the United States really good to talk to you so the u. S. Keeps imposing sanctions poland has issued its own penalties i mean is there anything that would make change its mind when it comes to russia being such a great energy. I think we have to step back a little bit on this question because if you see the situation from germany. From the perspective of the German Government and also german business then russia and previously soviet union have always been very reliable and the departments going back almost half a century or so from that since germany is proceeding very rationally and pursuing a very Strong Energy partnership with with russia what the german debates tends to fade out however is that russia also moves this energy as a political weapon against its neighbor as accounts of apartness and this is a point that supposedly underestimated here in germany for as long as. The country and its debates decouples economic and energy questions from those political and security questions relating to russia. This this decision to go for a Strong Partnership with russia is not going to be not going to be over of our so unfortunately what today and this is what i struggle to understand is that the pipeline will be on the used to mean the existing pipeline has huge capacity which is already on the u. S. So whats this about is this about geopolitical troop well this is really in the 1st place geo Political Tool that russia voice you know the Pipeline Capacity that is in place is fully sufficient to provide europe with russian actually gas supplies to. From russia over the last years have been relatively flat and theres no expectation that there would be a massive growth in all humans so what we really have here is a diversification by russia of its pipeline there for the creation of redundancies that would then make it possible to shift volume from one pipeline to another wherever russia wants to put pressure on specific transport transit countries such as ukraine so this is really a strategy of they were supplying and expanding Pipeline Capacity in order to be able to use it for political pressure in the future there were some outside of germany who thought that the poisoning of Opposition Leader lexy novelli may 4th the chancellor Angela Merkel to change her thinking on this what is her calculation head do you think. There really was debates that started. In the summer here in germany whether or not in response to the poisoning of alec saying that our new best should be a phrase a poor perhaps even a council ational into pipeline project there seem to be quite some momentum there were many senior policymakers including from chancellor merkels party who demand that this would be the appropriate response and even the chancellor at some stage herself seem to indicate that this is not only a commercial project as she has maintained for many years but also one that has a strong pullets for that and now unfortunately this special has not gone and gone any further the momentum seems to have seemed to fade in the meantime and there is no indication at this stage that. The chancellor and her government. Would take measures against those projects what i can really only do is speculate here why this is why this is the case in my opinion germany is acting responsibly unilaterally in this context that basically rhetorical always stresses has to be a european approach to Energy Policy to Energy Security but when it comes to this particular project germany is clearly acting unilaterally and very selfishly selfishly in my opinion unfortunately bats impression is not has not on the way and its not being biased by and by the German Government any time soon 18 countries 18 European Countries have opposed this project basically going as far as saying this increases germanys power in europe does it well it does in the way because it shows that a large and influential country like germany does get away with unilateral decisions even though gallants a an overwhelming majority of the partners who are opposed to this project. Plus a number of countries like ukraine thats point themselves outside of the box but all very close European Partners at the same time i think this project is also one but its obviously with germany into a much stronger position as and the jihad in europe. Would put that in the discredit and up and say just Competitive Position in European Energy market so there are there are a number of aspects that will increase the german power and influence here but at the same time what this project in the minds is he says in this among europeans this project has a very stark divide between germany and especially central and Eastern European partners in the European Union and beyond and it will be very hard to mend the. Divide in the years to come if germany does not change on this on this controversial project ok thank you so much for your perspective your analysis from berlin your program thank you. And that is the house this week get in touch with us by tweeting me at can for them and to use the hashtag i j c d c when you do or drunk us an email kind of a call to aljazeera dont know is our address. But theres more for you online at aljazeera dot com slash p. T. C. That will take you straight from page to chinas individual reporter links and time episodes for you catch up. And that is it for this edition of coming to call some compiled from the home team thanks for joining us youre going aljazeera is next. Dissecting the headlines in the midst of a pandemic lets start with some of the all new ground realities affecting the News Coverage whats the lay of the land theyre stripping away the spin a gripping story about president ial corruption it is real mood is not in your challenging assumptions and the official line we all decided we need to tell our story we dont want to lie on the authority and its media listening post on aljazeera. Aljazeera world meet some extraordinary women. Who are making things happen that way. Following their daily struggle to survive. For their families to thrive. Egypts women street silent as on aljazeera. Be the hero the world needs right. A step towards resolving the gulf crisis saudi arabia said a deal could be reached soon to end the 3 year land and sea blockade of qatar. Im about this and this is a 0 live from doha also coming up. The situation is urgent. If we dont act now the future will be very bleak a call for immediate action as u. S. Job growth slows and soaring covert 1000. 00 infections threaten the worse for the struggling economy