The training. Innovation and education. But this is one game we cant afford to lose the World Food Program fights and a world war helping people help themselves my goal is 0 longer. The lebanese economy is in freefall now the countrys largest port is out of commission and the entire city quarter is in need of rebuilding a look at the economic consequences of tuesdays explosion in beirut. Also want to show the democratic republic of congo is hit with a surge in inflation after the pen to make its a further squeeze on exports. Both welcome to the show im Stephen Beardsley in berlin its good to have you with us times are already tough in lebanon on food prices rising Power Outages becoming more frequent and coronavirus case numbers climbing now the need to rebuild the countrys largest port following an explosion on tuesday threatens to expose just how threadbare the countrys economy really is. A city in ruins its gateway to the Global Economy destroyed lebanon is scrambling to pick up the pieces of this weeks explosion. But long before the blast levanon to qana me was then a death spiral. Rampant inflation in an increasingly worthless currency plunging many lebanese into poverty hunger and despair all now are sure to get worse. More than 250000 people have lost their homes in beirut. And countless businesses have been destroyed. And we compensate. Lost our houses shops the house of my grandfathers and we lost my uncles wife and we took out from under the rubble is there anything bigger than this except. The explosion level of beirut support the countrys main artery for imports like food and fuel the bulk of the countrys grain and flour was stored in a silo there. The United Nations warns the blast could leave lebanon with a severe shortage of both of those staples. International leaders have pledged to send the lebanese government aid but there are strings attached. If you like to see the priorities a ton of unconditional support for the population in the months and years now if you want to frances been demanding indispensable reforms inside sectors and Energy Government procurement in the fight against corruption if these reforms are not carried out lebanon will continue to sink if it will even continue on some. Efforts will now turn to rebuilding beirut. That rebuilding the economy may be a longer and more difficult task. Im joined now by christoph claim on hes project director for lebanon and syria with the free press now been funding action and he joins me from beirut you were close to the port when the explosion occurred could you briefly tell me what your experience was yes i was at my apartment just coming back from work my apartment is approximately 800 meters away. Explosion. I 1st heard the 1st small explosion that felt a little bit like an earthquake and then a couple of minutes later this this big explosion that we always saw in television that looks like an atomic bomb explosion and i felt this wave coming at me and i just was hiding behind. My whole apartment was basically wrecked and you could see glass everywhere all the doors were flying around the apartment i was very lucky fortunately that Nothing Happened to me. Because of the economy in lebanon has deteriorated rapidly over the past 6 months just how bad is it for normal lebanese. For a lot of people it has become a. Show around 50 percent of the lebanese know it live below the public line and that is a dramatic indicator you have unemployment rates of around 40 percent. Currency lost around 80 percent since the beginning of the year for a lot of you know people this this is just an incredible option if you look at for instance the price. Of rice it used to be 5000 lebanese pounds now its the wrong 15000 lebanese homes salaries have stayed the same or have gone down and a lot of people lost their jobs so it shows you that it becomes almost you know very difficult to actually buy stuff speaking of foodstuff now the countrys largest port which is the main artery for a lot of that food stuff its in ruins what does that mean for the economy that is of course. Problem is. First and foremost a problem also for Food Security in this country. Is the 2nd port up in the north in tripoli its a much smaller hold and its very close to the Syrian Border also a security concern told. Destruction of that by report its really. Not only to import essential. Goods but specifically food and other essential. All right Christoph Klayman with the foundation thank you very much thank you lets switch gears to africa now president felix lockdown plan was supposed to protect the democratic republic of congo from the chronic virus pandemic but when it was eased at the end of july inflation was up to 17 percent and thats left many facing ruin. Fishmonger amelia kapanga is in a bind she buys her fish at the local wholesaler the prices that keep going up and she composite the difference on to her customers. Pop up were fed up about used to buy small fish for 20000 francs but today there are over 33 and we used to buy big fish 435000 products and now its 45 farm up its really difficult theres no profit. Let me put the money changers on the streets revealed just how much the congolese frank is falling in the democratic republic of congo many things are paid for in dollars petrol school fees rent yet most people here are earning congolese francs so theyre getting poorer the aussie has been struggling economically for a long time but the pandemic has made everything worse says economist no will she ani dont reduce should become. A 40 percent reduction in exports a 30 percent reduction in imports the result is a deficit in our trade balance in other words our country earns less foreign currency than it did before the pandemic. More Foreign Trade is needed to restore a better balance between the congolese frank and the dollar and to protect people here from economic ruin. An off kilter trade balance thats also a problem in neighboring uganda the countrys trade deficit widening to over 300000000. 00 u. S. Dollars in june as drawn of our sops Global Demand for the countrys goods its just the latest problem facing the african nation which in addition to corona virus restrictions has faced a locust invasion and flooding and now has very weak growth forecasts uganda received a 490000000. 00 loan from the International Monetary fund in may to help cushion the blow. Ever more on this im joined by g. W. Correspondent in kampala Julius Julius good to see you. Tourism is such an important sector for you guys. Because the pandemic tourism has been drying up everywhere how does the sector look in uganda right now. I think the situation in uganda as Tourism Sector is not any different from many other african countries uganda have liberalize and foreign visits has all come from. The United States and asia and now with the airlines down on no one is traveling its been really a very hard time for the to operate as many 2 are agencies of closed recently there was a relaxation of the local down under National Park started opening the doors to visitors but these are local visitors and local visitors contribute to a very small percentage to the tourism buskins which is estimated to above 1600000000 so that to all parties as i read in a very terrible time much as the trying to come back to business the numbers wont make any sense until the foreign visitors come back. We talk about the growing trade imbalance and we just mentioned the lack of tourists and yet the local currency the shilling is actually doing relatively well against the dollar why is that i think it is so because one of the major exports which is coffee has been doing well the farmers of hard to bump a harvest export shadows have not been closed youve got no continues to export its coffee to europe the europeans are still questioning ugandan coffee and the price of coffee and the Global Market hasnt been so bad so uganda is hot. Coffee exports trying to salvage the situation but all in all you can see that that situation might be temporary because youre going to sue doesnt get enough money from me to this is. Other exports so you can see that that youre going to shilling is benefiting from the from the situation that is favored by the coffee exports at the moment because the bumper harvest has really helped. Their forests in kampala thank you very much. As in the other Global Business stories making headlines. Microsoft is interested in buying the entire Global Business of tech talk from its Chinese Parent Company that according to the Financial Times microsofts plans had previously left out the european and indian operations of the social video ringback. Smartphones are made out of reach for billions of people according to a new study from the alliance for affordable internet nearly 2500000000 people live in countries where the cheapest smartphone will cost them a quarter of their monthly income. A collapse of air travel during the krona virus crisis in the 2nd quarter was a surprisingly perhaps a big blow to. With more than a 1000000000 in losses now chairman carson spores talking about cutting costs and cutting jobs for most of lufthansas planes still grounded currently unused runways but german and has been part nationalized with in a deal granting it 9000000000 euros in state 8 but experts remain skeptical about its future. Its highly unlikely that. A traveling general will be able to return to pre virus levels. In any case it will be several years before it doesnt look like a pretty heavy no. In the 1st quarter of this year the Airline Already suffered operational losses to the tune of 1200000000 euros in the 2nd quarter as much as 1700000000 thursday chairman constant said recovery will take until at least 2024 and that redundancies still in the cards to the outrage of unions. What good notice we knew that the crisis would last longer than expected so we agreed to dismissal protection until 2024 so mr schools threats of redundancies in the press today have come as a shock enough times has to stick to the agreements its made of us they go home with the german state owning a 20 percent stake in the airline any job cuts are set to become a political issue and with the pandemic still in full force care free flowing as it once was will be pious the sky for a long time to come. Thats it for me and the Business Team here to. Dot com slash business or also on facebook and twitter im stephen theres a as watching. Strong clear Position International perspective. For the time being the coronaviruses it seems. With many countries including germany possibly facing us 2nd way we are sports exactly are we going to find out join me or my guests on to the poll. To this point. 6 to. Literature invites us to see people in particular. As the kids. Are new to. This is due to the news africa on the show today cashback zimbabwean lives matter that printed on social media this week as celebrities and politicians join the campaign against human rights abuses in the country that Campaign Comes off to the embraced of civilians journalists high profile political activists and opposition figures in zimbabwe ill be speaking to one of them. And well meet the artist and garner whos dedicated at least recent put to the people on the frontlines of the public 19 and