Vote you have to make sure you have every vote counted everybody has to. Because its taken this election is control of the u. S. Senate and that really means control of this country the voters of georgia will determine which party runs every committee right every piece of legislation controls every single taxpayer dollar the u. S. Has reported a Record Number of covert 1000 infections for a 3rd day in a row nearly 230000 cases were recorded over the past 24 hours according to John Hopkins University and theres been more than 2500 deaths in that time the u. S. Has seen a huge resurgence of the virus over the past month putting immense pressure on hospitals post press that trade talks between the United Kingdom and the European Union are set to resume on sunday the 2 sides are deadlocked over issues of governance fishing and competition rules theres less than a month to go before a deadline to reach a post brett sit trade deal. The leader of ethiopias to agree region says his fighters are still battling Government Forces local leaders say government soldiers have bombed one town while fighting is under way outside the regional capital nic kelly a Communications Blackout has made it difficult to assess conditions on the ground several people have been detained in israel amid protests against Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu demonstrators are calling for him to resign over corruption charges and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The United Nations has condemned shelling in the yemen which has killed at least 6 civilians at least 10 others were injured in the port city of the data is the 3rd time the week that civilians have been killed in attacks or should follow those stories on our web site at aljazeera dot com back with more news in half an hour next on aljazeera its counting the cost to stay with us. The World Food Program will be see the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting against hunger and the use of starvation as a weapon of war we ask executive director david these he call the challenge of combating Global Hunger would be met the age of the coronavirus pandemic the nobel interview on aljazeera. Given al this is counting the calls on aljazeera to a look at the world of business and economics this week the end of austerity the ideology of collective punishment decimating the weak instances 90 for the economic mismanagement and crimes of the rich and powerful be consigned to history. 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 countries to hack back at Public Services. Commerce 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 pandemic 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 spot 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 persons 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 caveat 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 arent you so great 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 saying the calling the old saying live news of the wealth the country. Banks protected our economy all those that have best protected human life so when they need to come to asia bold its not just a bill or a factory a countries like china japan south korea i well come from words in the intro. With our every corner of the great wall of this room but i will find the good side what im striking from the i. M. F. Is already to understand. The. 5 whole 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 thank you creating problems to allow them to call if we need to spend as well because its. Investing is. Creating this integration for the people to stay not down which is the idea frank 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 we 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 cult of a practice all along the supply chain so you can just contract economists. Call the fishes that track the things things that say by you know you know that. Scene creasing if you know the fable to. Confirm that and i think birds spending route is a good instruction so essentially things are made because essentially to cultivate already the states of gravity is how i think about bringing back not destroying the dome and the experiences. Ization the supply chains because essentially men step on to grow these have safety that so and thats they support people in jobs through expending that have to support people and for a while the system we know from over the mountains of data that. People find it very very hard to launder very well for assistance to farms back in the labor market back to the battery thing called life support so that theres enough business cooperatives to bounce back as quickly as you found and i think i think ringback 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 we think in this sense i think you are actually spending money to prevent race assassinates lets talk about the u. K. For a minute it was also introduced austerity for what critics to 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 developed this reference rate its the only popular trunk shall we say is. This prevents them instead of in the west and well for the past sort of. A sane sweeping alliances. In the developed world. How about the whacking plots in the developing world so if you do a distribution of. Whos benefits of marriage from that i suppose its its there is in the way i think class it is about a thing where they settle on the same people are actually the working classes in the west and havent really benefited from Global Brands the soul and the brackets of the many during times of stack and so forth so what they send me is we introduce a sterile and into a system where these people are highly vulnerable anyway after the weekend security is done with a team of lawyers and you know you can tell americans aaron im not have a business that people are not stable the poor that all im back create. The conditions for puppets and i think George Osborne gave you my all initial actually it was very attractive because it priced in the british that. Very last time so we didnt say anything like for exactly that or so on the sample but it went on too long it was articulate on the academic idea. For god i think thats a state the local state so all councils and all. Public services are essentially become defined by and they didnt have a bassman in them to enable them but that 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 that dont we preach it 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 well for madrid vera joins me now via skype 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 obviously it has found that 84 percent of the 91. 00 they and their colleagues 1000. 00 loans and polish and some cases it wont require countries to a lot talks are the measures in aftermath of the Health Crisis is a thanks at least 767. 00 lower middle Income Countries from the u. S. To 25. 00 or 70 measures could include cuts Public Service this includes wage freezes cats the Public Sector workers like doctors and nurses it includes increases in value of the taxes which apply to every they call it seeing food household soup soup lies and full disproportionally young women in 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 recently called so for having over the last jobs so it doesnt work for the poor people for the most political 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 now hes 2. 00 sides off there of of the going on the one side it seems like the is the i. M. F. Just 2 faces research and sometimes the 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 saying its i mean the i. M. F. Has Strong Research about that and yours awful stary we find we command these these sort of research and analyses but 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 as we pay that price we have to see different ways i mean we have to all of 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 8th revenge bent of a commitments 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 d economy in times of of me because i dont need now. Im equally sure even 3 feet really im off the special drawing rights which all i am a 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 incoming times i am but i did 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 a seriously ill should mean canceling 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 part of our research to find how far its only 22 per cent of the Global Workforce who has any kind of social protection in such as sick leave or unemployment. Protection even if it doesnt change the full. Economic system and the writing its now taxed wages what we will be seeing is that the this 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 thanks to you. 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 the net 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 bill and 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 the soviet union have always been very reliable and the 2 party going back almost half a century or so from that sense germany is receiving 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 a rigorous 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 you 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 russia in that role gas supplies. 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 de versification by russia off its Pipeline Network 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 labor 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 lexi 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 priest a cause perhaps even a council ational to pipeline project there seemed 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 seemed to indicate that this is not only a commercial project as she has maintained for many years but also one that has a strong pull its for that now unfortunately this discussion has not gone and gone any further the momentum seems to have seemed to fade in the meantime and theres 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 gone away and its not being by and by the German Government any time soon 18 countries 18 European Countries have opposed this project its only going as far as saying this increases germanys power in europe doesnt 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 their gallants a overwhelming majority of the partners who are opposed to this project. Plus a number of countries like ukraine that point themselves outside of the bar but are very close European Partners at the same time i think that this project is also one that would obviously put germany into a much stronger position as an energy heart in europe. It would put it in a different and up and say just Competitive Position than europeans Energy Market so there are there are a number of aspects that will increase german german power and influence here at the same time what is popular in the minds. Amongst 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. Fences the bites in the years to come if germany does not change its. On this controversial project ok thank you so much for your perspective your analysis from berlin europe for a quick thank you. And that is that show for this week get in touch with us by tweeting me at can without end do you use the hash tag a j c d c when you do or drop us an email county because aljazeera dot net is an hour and to us but theres more for you on line it down to 0 dot com slash c. T. C. That will take you straight to our page which has individual reports links and type episodes for you catch up. And that is it for this edition of counting because some cant get out from the home team thanks for joining us news on aljazeera is next. 2019 disputed election 4th believe your 1st indigenous president into exile ever morale is considered his future and hope to return his party rallied behind new candidates. With a tense new election drawing close in late 2022 people in power went behind the scenes to see if the Indigenous Movement could pull off a remarkable comeback in libya exile will return on aljazeera in 1958 Charles De Gaulle made a famous speech in algeria. Campaigning i take the dont hold back the tide of algerian independence or keep frances colonies in africa and the pacific. In the final episode of the series aljazeera explores how the long and bitter fight for the french empire still resonates today blood in tears french to colonize a shadow on aljazeera. Aljazeera. Now. Its taken this election is control of the u. S. Senate and that really means control of this country President Trump addresses his 1st political rally since losing the election had all the Senate Runoff vote in georgia. Colors all robin and this is all just a relaunch my headquarters here in doha coming up in the next 30 minutes the e. U. And the u. K. All last ditch talks on a break sit trade deal with a deadline just weeks away. The lights turned on but everyones at home a quiet start to christmas