You really can be in this position where you have the warning time where you really would be able to do things decades in advance. And thats completely realistic. The impact will be captured by the spacecraft on board camera, promising a dramatic view of an experiment which may 1 day be remembered as helping prevent armageddon. Rob reynolds al jazeera. Ah, its good to be with us. Hello, adrian said again, here in doha, the headlines on al jazeera in eastern russia. Im out as open for inside an army draft office, wounding and official. Supposed to be upset home to his best friend was hold up to fight in ukraine. Earlier, a kremlin spokesman admitted that some people have been called up by mistake. Mamma reports from moscow. The kremlin mentioned the the mistakes, but we did not have a detailed list of those mistakes. But it is understandable now understood that the, the local governors and the local communities have taken this set draft to decree to far instead of a partial mobilization, which usually meas, calling up reservists in the army. People who have been trained in the army who have received some type of training whatsoever. Instead of that, every one in the street was rounded up in many places in some areas of the country and that, you know, anchored people across russia. At least 15 people, including 11 children, have been killed and several injured after. Gunman opened fire at a school in russia. Shooting happened in the central city of this yeske. Only italy appears on course for its 1st far right, Prime Minister since the 2nd world war. A white wing coalition, led by georgia, maloney is projected to take a majority of seats in parliament, making her the most likely candidate to lead the country. Lebanons government has passed its budget for 2022. It approved the spending claim as protest is gathered in the capital bay route. The country faces an unprecedented economic crisis with many people falling into poverty over the last 3 years. A quick change of clothes for me and a change of studio, but ill be back in just a few moments with counting the cost on al jazeera. Ah ah, hello, im adrian said again. This is counting the cost on al jazeera, your wiki, look at the world of business, said economics, this week, an economic meltdown of the freeze on cash with fools, desperate lebanese to positives, holding up that own banks to get access to their life savings. So whats the way out of the financial crisis . Also this week, china is owed almost 40 percent of poor countries debt payments this year, and is on the pressure to help strained economies overhaul that credit buttons. So what can beijing do . Plus straus threatening zimbabwe crops, and raising fears of a Food Insecurity and bumping farm as a going back to old falling techniques to cope with extreme weather conditions. Ah, the World Bank Says that lebanons economic crisis may be one of the 3 west in bottom times that its left 1810 people paw. Many lebanese people cant afford basic necessities. Of those who have life savings in banks cant access them. Withdrawals have been limited since the financial meltdown began in 2019. Now desperate deposit is a robbing banks across the cash strapped country to get hold of their own money. So how did lebanon get to this point . Well successive lebanese couple months, which are accused of corruption and mismanagement, wrecked up huge debts in 2019, it became clear that the state have no capacity to finance its debts, including the countries, commercial banks. Lebanons Financial System is estimated to have lost more than 70000000000. 00. And bank say they dont have enough dollars to pay to positives. Theyve imposed informal capital controls and of offered savers with us dollar accounts, lebanese lira to withdraw their money instead. But the local currency has lost around 95 percent of its value since the crisis started. And the countries gdp plunged more than 20000000000 dollars last year. The government comp afford basic services with long hours of electricity, blackouts, and medicine shortages. Weve met one deposit to try to retrieve his cash by force. Heres what he had to say. And i say the spanish i fan, my name is the some shake. Hussein and i have 210000. 00 in my account. Its my money that i own from work and from selling my apartment and my parents house for what they must. And my dad has a serious medical condition and i needed money. I went to the bank manager and he promised to help me once the bank got cash, but 2 and a half months passed and he still didnt get any money on that. Ill be in the lo fi, my phone. I went to the bank and asked if it was available and the manager said no, i went to my car to get the gun and fuel. I entered the bank and locked the door and demanded all of my deposits. I poured fuel every time and the la from bob at the little bottle there. I told the employees not to get involved and no one would get hers lavender methodical. 3 negotiators representing the government arrived and called in thought. Initially they wanted to give me 10000. 00 in dallas. Later, they offered 16000. 00 again, i refused up, let the shrewd and again it was around 5 or 6 pm when they offered me 13000. 00. They even gave me 35000. 00 in cash, which i got, and they promised me 400. 00 a day and said i would not be detained the land. But i agreed, even though i knew they were like, i surrendered, but they detained me for 5 days because the bank filed charges against me. And i never received the 400 dollar payments to have my life has been destroyed since the local currency devalued. And i lost my job about them as well. I wont rest until i get my money back. Was hired on long. It is a life or death choice. The interior minister should erase those who took our money, not us. I will exercise my rights any way i can, even if it involves blood. I will never give up a while to discuss all of this rejoined now from bay route by sunday i tele, sunday is the founding director of the pay route based independent think tank. The policy Initiative Good to have you with us, sammy, the Banking Association, the 11 and says that banks are going to remain shots indefinitely following this series of holdups, im. It does closing banks make the situation better or worse. And i had the situation. But let me just stop on to well hold off the chart, not hold ups or bank robberies. As the Banking Association is saying, in fact, aurora is when you actually have someone or an act or someone is going into a bank to see other peoples money. What were actually seeing in lebanon right now is that people are going into the bank to take their own money, but by force, and theres a huge difference, but that because a lot of people, 11. 00, she liked that the Banking Sector and actually brought them all their own money and since 2019, as you know, we have not been able to access all our departments, only the rich and the powerful have managed to transfer more than 15000000. 00 off of the country, whereby individuals like ourselves are left to deal with the consequences of the collapse, the world bank accused liberties, politicians of staging, a ponzi scheme that is quote corps to unprecedented social and economic pain over the last 3 decades. What do you make of that accusation . Yes, i mean, absolutely. And youve got to political establishment that has missed managed economy for many years. And here were talking about the end of the civil war where they ran major structural deficit in the economy and particularly, and im talking about the public deficit, public budget deficit and the trade deficit. Which means theyve allowed the policy whereby theyre spending way more money than actually collecting for the treasury, and actually importing way more good than the export thing, which led to a policy where you have to keep on attracting capital into lebanon, to finance these 2 deficits. And there were many warnings about this policy to stop it to rectify the government and consecutive lebanese governments where they ought to be blamed all the Political Parties that our did not do anything about it. But they actually kept these policies in dock, and the central bank came to facilitate the financing of such a scheme whereby the act that people to put their money in lebanon when Interest Rates are higher than other places in the world. And in fact, the Banking Sector got so read into this where they actually invested 70 percent of their portfolio into the state central bank and the government. And hence mismanaged our own money. And led to this major fun to scheme which ended up, you know, what the talk to the financial and social kind of apps if youre talking about. So theres a lot of people to be named here, the political establishment, the government, the parliament has also failed to do anything. I want to in fact fascinated this by hijacking Economic Reforms as well. The central bank was the architect of this policy and the Banking Sector, and you know, they benefit that the most of this, you know, and they made a lot of profits before the crisis at our expense. All right, so heres the 1000000. 00 question. How does lebanon get out of this financial mess . So the prescription to get out of that message is very clear here. The are there or not is clear the set of policies that need to be in place. Ok are clear and many people have been talking about them and theyre very straightforward. You need to have a couple of control to stop in the money leaving the country. You needed a law, you need to order the central bank and so forth. The prescriptions of what to do a search forward. But heres the issue. The government has to choose to conduct any of these, implement any of these reforms. And the last 2 years, this is unheard of where whites a country is witnessing a social and economic collapse for the last 3 years. And the state, the government, the government hasnt done anything to protect the people. So they dont want to do the c forms, in fact, the protected the banks, you know, and the protected their own interest. And then a few thing to do. Any of these, there have been 6 or 7 draft of the company for law and parliament. And yet we havent been able to implement any of these. So this is a situation whereby the political, any wants to protect this interest is refusing to, in fact, conduct any of this reforms despite even i m. S. Insistence that this are going to be clinicians for any future law and, and you know, just that it was in fact a and i m f that edition here criticizing the 11 is government for not doing this job, but some of them this, this situation called go on indefinitely, how do you see it coming to an end . The problem is we have only 6 to 9 months money to buy and ports, you know, from this central bank reserves. So clearly that time is ticking. Theres no more time to pick the kind away as the lebanese policies, the policy should have been doing bad for the last 20 years. Their time is up and the solution needs to be implemented. Now the question is, where they have the weather to actually undertake the forms which they have failed to do for the last 20 years. Or they will actually pretend theyre doing the forms. And i knew them in such a way that they actually black me. And in the community to actually give money to lebanon, so people dont go hungry at all. So the situation again, the technical situation, technical solution to the problem is very clear, the prescription order, ready . Clear. But they refuse to hold them because its highly let they can or these political lead and their own financial and economic interest. So they gonna have to, to either begin to bring the whole country done, which already done so and even more so, or they take this possibility and put on tracks. They have fit to do that. And so im expecting that things are going to get worse and lebanon, you know, until, and were going to go into very uncertain periods. So me, thanks for explaining all that for us really appreciate it. Many thanks and date term. Ah, almost 70 percent of the worlds poorest countries will have to repay at least 52000000000. 00 in debt this year. A more than a quarter of that money will go to china. Much of a loans, a link to Infrastructure Projects as part of the chinese president , shes in pings belt an Road Initiative. Now, many of beijings borrowers are not able to beat their financial obligations. The International Monetary funds says that china and other big creditors have a responsibility to prevent debt problems exploding the i m. F. Estimates the 25 percent of emerging market and 60 percent of low Income Countries were in or near debt distress. China says that it will forgive 23. 00 interest free loans to 17 african nations and redirect 10000000000. 00 worth of its i m f, reserves to africa. Will china is one of the was largest single creditor nations. And researchers have found that around 60 percent of beijings overseas lending is now to low Income Countries, which are in debt distress or at high risk of it. Its loans to low and middle Income Countries are estimated to have tripled over the past decade, reaching more than 170000000000. 00 by the end of 2028th date up the u. S. Based research lamps, as the pakistan shore lanka and argentina, a 3 of the largest recipients of chinese rescue lending. Most nations share information about our lending activities through membership of whats known as the paris club. But china isnt part of that group and doesnt publish records of its foreign loans. Were joining us now from hong kong is carlos casanova, a senior economist at union banker pre they will you be pete . Call us good heavy with us on counting the cost of what shell take then on this issue of chinese law loans. As, as creditors, what sort of people are they to borrow from . Thanks for having the show. So china has, in fact become a much larger creditor in the past decade or since the launch of its built and wrote initiative in 2013. Of course, china as a financial assistant differ slightly to that offered by other lenders such as the i m, f for other members of the always the be let harris club in that it doesnt come with added conditionality. By conditionality we mean, you know, political reforms, austerity, and other conditions that are not always very popular amongst some emerging countries. So china is able to navigate the political risks because it doesnt have to abide by the norms for landing. So its bundles, its Financial Assistance with other commercial aspects, for example, involving some of the state on and the prices agreeing to repayments in commodities as well as us dollars. And so in that way, it is able to perhaps tap areas of the emerging world that are not well serviced by existing lenders. The i m f and other developed countries. But does the fact that the china does things differently, pose a risk both to lend and borrower . Well, there is a reason why the largest lenders such as the m f and a to be, are not able to do some of the things that time is able to do. Typically we are looking at countries where the solar risk is higher and the projects where the returns or the visibility in terms of future returns are not as clear as in other parts of the world. I think the main thing that entices countries to take on these sorts of credits from china is the chinese economic miracle. And everybody wants to have a similar narrative in their, in their country. China has been very successfully eradicating poverty over the past decade. So everybody wants a slice of the pie to but of course, when projects turn sour or when the cost of servicing the debt and maintaining the infrastructure becomes prohibitive, then you have countries that stumble into stress and that service and cannot service their short term debt. And have to incur silver and false, but if she cant afford to pay back that, that to china, what risk as opposed to the chinese economy . So as i mentioned, china is able to partially offset some of this risk by allowing the repayment to take shape in the form of commodities. Historically, this has been very advantageous for china in places such as swale or with oil and copper exports. It is not perhaps as strong a driver in places that just rely on we can talk about that as well where, you know, the main commodity that we would be looking at is next exports of tea. So there, you know, they have more, more risk and we are seeing that risk and out into a more complex discussion around the countries that restructuring efforts with the i m f. And also the role that china is saying that in that conversation is china becoming a competitor to the mass of the world bank, or do they work in time them in, in partnership . I think they work in tandem. China is becoming a big credit or so in a sense, emerging markets, especially those that have not been able to act the financing from the i, m f or emerging countries that have been frustrated with the lack of progress in the m. S. In terms of representation of emerging markets within the fund, they are increasingly, or they have been increasingly turning to china as an alternative. So in a sense, it is competing. But of course, the nature of chinese aid is very different to that of the m, f. The magnitude of belts and project both enrolled in Infrastructure Investment to date is of course smaller compared to what the m f has done given as longer track record. So for me and for emerging markets in this more complex school environment, i think its important that both are working in time them to, to minimize risks with some nations now struggling to, to pay back the debt to china. What does that mean for the belt and Road Initiative and, and could china spec scale back . Its lending to countries. In fact, we have already seen this since 2019. We have seen Infrastructure Spending and under the belt and road actually decrease significantly. Part of the reason was that many countries in the emerging world experience the decline in g d, p, and, and revenues following from the pandemic going forward. The stress is slightly different because were looking at a very hawkish fed rising rates, the liquid, and inflation also within china. Some of the risks have started to pile, so we see Difficult Conversations in places such as st. Im kind of course, with the domestic economy also entering a, a phase of a slower activity. The appetite or the domestic sentiment towards offering some of these riskier loans to emerging markets is lower than it has been before. So our expectation is that we will continue to see a deceleration in both turn road projects over the coming years. And hopefully once all of the uncertainty surrounding, you know, rising risks of recession in the u. S. And everything thats happening with a threat is over, we might see a pick up in an activity once again, call us, its been really good to talk to you on counting the Cost Effective date of being with us. Now Sustainable Finance, its largely defined as Investment Decisions based not only on financial returns as investors traditionally expect, but also with an eye on environmental, social and governance. Saw e s g factors put simply investing money and projects that can make the world a better place. Renewable energy, for example, global, Sustainable Investing assets. Regional was 35. 00 trillion dollars in 2020. But what is e s g . Exactly. We put that question to zoe night. The group head of hsbc, center of Sustainable Finance. At head of Climate Change minute. If she still abstract, right, i mean is, its a bit of a mystery to most people. What the social aspect means, what governance means and what environment means. But if you drill it down, the whole a gender is about people. Its about access to employment and jobs a how a peoples jobs going to be impacted by this climate gender. Its about sort of the access to money for change. How he doesnt change that, how, how we deliver a stronger, more prosperous economy that works for everybody. We know that the science is telling us to get to a net 0 emissions framework by 2050. And we know that finance must provide capital to the solutions and must think about the consequences of warmer temperatures and how that might affect our clients and affect their ability to operate in their business. Models is g factors and out front and center for governments and businesses here in the gulf with the potential of unlocking 2 trillion dollars in economic growth. Bullet 1000000 jobs by 2030. So in, id says the region is looking at investments in Carbon Capture and hydrogen to make the energy transition. This region is abundant in energy and its providing Energy Services to the entire world. Equally, it will be host to the climate talks in november this year and november next year, that gives the region an opportunity to create its own narrative, honor energy, future, and energy vision. How the Climate Transition plan will play out across the gulf. The task of egypt in cop 27. 00 is to show the implementation that is going on on the ground to really showcase projects on d. Carbonell zation that are work in progress. Now theyre in train, whether its green hydrogen, whether its Carbon Capture and storage. How that is shifting the way the energy flows worked to day. Last years Climate Summit saw banks, insurers and investors with 130. 00 trillion dollars and assets pledging to help with the world of fossil fuels. Weve set a target on financing of up to a trillion over the next 8 years to support the Sustainable Finance transition agenda. Thus, mission critical. What were also doing is working with external coalitions to build the framework for what transition looks like across different sectors and industries. And were doing that in conjunction with an initiative that came out of the glasgow climate talks the glasgow financial linesman at 0 g fence. So what we find is by collaborating across both other banks and with our clients and with industries and governments and regulators, we can discuss the challenges and discuss the barriers for change and figure out how finance can really unblock them and commercialize activities that perhaps havent been commercialized and pause. Now said bob with facing growing Food Shortages and farmers are resorting to old farming techniques to cope with extreme weather conditions. Cray pot irrigation can save large amounts of water without depriving crops of zeros hulma tasa reports. Now, from the town of chic, go to to reasons i mean, his garden is thriving under this lead. Sunk up to snake into the ground is one of several clay pots, irrigating her tomatoes. This alternative way of growing food is ideal for zimbabwe. A country prone to drought, and re people dont get regular supplies of piped water from the council. He normally did africa. Yes. Even when there is no. Whats her . My vegetables are all is green. Its been days without water here. But the clay pots are all, is watering my tomatoes, using clay pots to water crops is not a new farming technique. Its used in other parts of the world, and now its gaining traction in zimbabwe. The clear puts her for some small time in you visible. Im a pause of that are used to for our water supply. The water that are the is inside pick live, it seeps around the video across the did it yourself for to send to meet us saw the did the plans of own good. Yes. Or for instance, if it just gets off the water rising sweep prices high, a fuel costs and inflation at 285 percent in will just means many families a battling zimbabwe government plan to distribute food aid to more than 2000000 vulnerable families from october, that number is expected to go up next year. Its not as rural households. People in urban areas also going hungry. And a privileged communities often run out of food in october, the drys period before the rainy season. The un also plans to assist it, been hunger, if something got turn well started to see me ah, during the course of 19 pandemic. So its something that is fairly new is you know, the work for the program. I used to work mainly in the rural areas, but now we have started to since some pockets in cities and towns were, visa had been hung. The clay pots cost 5. 00 each buying in bulk can be expensive. So communities also use plastic bottles with holes poked into them. They were just as well for some families in urban areas. These water saving techniques are a lifeline. Help them grow food for themselves and sometimes a little extra to fell harder. Matessa al jazeera, chiquita, sim bobby. And thats all show for this week. If youd like to comment on anything that youve seen, you can treat me. Im at a, for the good on twitter. If you can please use the hash tag a j c t c, or you can drop us a line, counted the cost at al serra dot net is our email address. As always, was plenty more for you online at al jazeera dot com slash ctc. That takes you straight to our page there, youll find individual reports, links, even entire episodes for you to catch up with that. Is it for this edition of counting the cost on Adrian Finnegan for the whole team here. And so huh. Thanks for being with us. The news on al jazeera is next ah ah, ah, ah ah, from the from dallas of correct. Yes. So the battle fields around most of our job is to get to the truth and empower people through knowledge. Ah, columbia and venezuela reopened their board of trade after 7 years. Ah