law the o, and as it considers the past and also to the future, the me, the old lang syne, echoes round the bones monument sung in all the languages of the european union, a work by nigerian artist ymca opa. it's an ode to unity and a meditation for the city that might one day be the capital of an independent scotland jona whole al jazeera, edinburgh. ah, i mean side in the hall with the headlines on al jazeera, the taliban has taken over the presidential palace in the afghan capital campbell. it comes at an end of a surprisingly quick offensive during which the finance took over most of the

country. the taliban says at once a peaceful transfer of power more now from rome. mcbride, who is incapable. this has been a day that yes, began with the circle months the siege of cobble pulling the noose tighter. if you like around the city, the call the nation of course of weeks of games by the taliban across afghan, it's done taking probably instruct problems gradually. forces falling back as provinces fell and all of the focus all of the attention, all of this great momentum that the taliban built up, then being focused and directed towards cobble itself. president, chef connie has fled the country and they were chaos of scenes and cobbled airports as there's also trying to leave the u. s. and the nation still have forces working to evacuate their citizens and afghans who have supported them. taliban says it's

holding talks to form what it calls an open, inclusive, as long as government spokesman says, the group will respect women's rights, allowing them to work and get an education as long as they wear his job. in other news, have government says the death toll from saturday that quake has risen to nearly 1300000 more have been injured. many of being treated in the open rescue seems desperately trying to search for survivors ahead of a potential deluge from an approaching tropical storm. a prominent coalition of pro democracy groups in hong kong is disbanding. the civil human rights front helped organize huge rallies 2 years ago. and a statement of liter said phasing, sweeping, crackdown on descent in the city have left them, had left them movement with no future days. all your headlines inside story coming up. next, we understand the differences and similarities of culture across the world. no

matter why you call hand era who bring you the news and current affairs, algebra, it economic crisis made was by phyllis deadlock, 7 on the said, retracing and inevitable social what can be done to prevent the nation collapsing altogether. and who's to blame? this is inside the door. ah, ah, hello, welcome to the program. i'm kinda no, no food, no water, no medicine, and no fuel for transportation or an tricity. that's the diet station which led on

finds itself after more than 18 months of political and economic instability. most analysts put the blame on political sectarianism and corruption, lebanon's international allies say they want to help the economy, but only of the new government is formed. but that brought no hope to the millions of lebanese struggling to make ends meet. the country hasn't had a functioning government in 10 months. the situation doesn't appear to be getting any better. the world bank calls them all the economic crisis. one of the was in the world in the last 150 years. the situation is so dire that more than half of its population is now living under the poverty line. tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs, pushing the unemployment rate to 40 percent. and those who still have a salary getting little value for their money. the lebanese currency is all more than 90 percent of its value during the past 18 months. and there's also been a severe shortage of basic goods including few and medicine. most lebanese face

daily pal accounts for many hours and petrol stations are rationing fuel. bringing our guests in just a moment, but 1st here's some of what liberties people are saying. who are the fear? was it done? the situation is tragic and nobody in the country cares. none of the officials are listening to us or extending their hand. and that's why the american universities calling on the united nation 2 units f to the world health organization. these conditions are unbearable sheet. i feel we got a mile minimum of what's happening is unacceptable. especially in the car with the smuggling that's happening. 24 hours a day in the suburbs and border areas in front of everyone's eyes. people are desperate. there's no electricity, no generators, no medicine, no life. what are we waiting for? how long will we remain this way? we're all desperate and you people pay attention to yourself. you should not use the black market. if you find someone cut off on the road, i would give fuel if i had it and fill it for him for nothing, not charge him 500000 lebanese pounds for fuel. it's a shame i live in,

i'm not in the law. we are, the only was the last speaker he was bringing to the area. so the pressure is almost due to us for production. we are only given a 36 funds. so the classes remains that we will not be able to go on for more than one week. i don't know what to do with them. i'm working with everything i have. i'm not hiding. i can flow on. ah, i, let's bring in august in beirut. patrick martini an economist at leading the whole international for market solutions in paris. joe mac. wrong a fellow at the arab center in washington, d. c. and from bar tune in, nor the lebanon hoco women, head of the international crosses, groups iraq, syria, levon on project. very well, welcome to you all. i'd begin with with you if i may, jo mac roll. most recently the most recent tragedy to happen in labor on 28 people

have just died on sunday in a fuel tank or explosion lining up to get fuel fuel. which was probably smuggled men confiscated, the unraveling in lebanon, seems unstoppable. what's your sense of where things are at and where they're heading? i mean, this is all the absence of the state we had, and we still want to government. we have the last 2 years basis that conditional corruption. and now we see the black market basically taking over over the medicine whether the fuel and their initial sources. so we see a government based she's, i was to get it done. she told the government, we reached a point to say to teachers for him. and if he is that every day with the army,

to keep over even getting walked in by the army or to deal with stretch issues or mo dicking and more and day to day manager or so not only isn't going to provide you the right direction on the other end of the state and i'm not sure how, who sure hike of women is that you also have take. do you agree with that as well? just on the fuel front to me it's obviously scarce. the fuel subsidy was meant to ease things. now that set to end because the central bank conky pop, i mean what's going to happen? yeah, i mean it's, it's clearly it's, it's quite clear that you've reached

a critical juncture. the politically lead people empower. i've been really taking the candle the road for the past 2 years and avoiding decisions that are required to, to get out of this to appear upon the bottomless pits and they have avoided them. and so we are getting deeper and deeper into, into the bottomless pit. so, i mean, they, they remove the subsidies so that no longer there would be an incentive to, to smuggle fuel to syria for instance. that so that if people pay, pay like international prices for lindsay and diesel and finally that would be enough of it. but of course, i mean, we think about what that means. it means it's really where to happen. it means that

as of monday or tuesday, if it's really implement that you know people will have to pay for 5 times more. for benzine, for diesel not mean. simply, i think a huge, huge part of the population cannot afford. it means a lot of businesses will have to close down because they cannot afford it, and it's yet another turn in the cycle in the downward spiral towards mass poverty . let's talk a bit of a rude, patrick montana. you're an economist, the central bank says subsidies can continue if the government come possible to allow the use of the mandatory reserve. obviously the country doesn't have a functioning government, so our monetary policy make is being held ransom here. so actually, i don't think it would be a good idea to continue in the subsidy process. so i don't think it would be a good idea for the government or the parliament to vote

a law that allows the use of the required reserve. the tragedy of to day to be explosion that happened in our car. and all the fighting that we see every day in the queues lining up at the gas station. all of that is due to subsidies, subsidies of medicine and fuel lead to shortages of medicine and if you will, in lebanon. so even if people to, they want to work to reduce, to get out of the crisis. they cannot do that because of the shortages of gas, which means that no transportation and the shortages of fuel means no electricity. and you cannot produce anything without transportation and electricity. so the problem of subsidies is that the government intention was to actually use the crisis using those subsidies, the unintended consequences of this misguided, the policy has been catastrophic. it led to bloodshed today, but also it led to basically blocking any possibility of getting back production

and getting out of the current crisis. so i don't think it would be a good idea to continue in the subsidies. i think the subsidies should be to be immediate. so what then, what kind of a subsidies are to blame? how do, how does one ease the suffering in the short so basically the 1st thing we need to do is to cut subsidies to repeat them. and the government did not do that yet. today, the price of fuel are still at the subsidized level. and that's why we still have shortages if tomorrow morning, the government issued the new prices of fuel and those new prices are not subsidized. then the crisis, the fuel prices will end immediately, right? so the 1st thing would be to ensure the availability of those would in the market, those fuel, the gas, the diesel, to the market, by investing subsidies. on the other hand, we need to allow people to regain some purchasing power. and the reason people have

been losing purchasing power is because of expansion or the monetary policy we've been printing me crazy in order basically to allow the money it is ation of debt and deficit. and this is the reason of hyper inflation and currency the valuation. so the solution to head to people is to actually strengthen the liberties bound because their income is independent found. and we can do that by stopping the printing of money. and this is one of the form that has been discussed today, which is to actually install a currency board. a currency board is going to be the 4 that would strengthen the lead off and help people recover some purchasing power. okay, can i just ask you on that? and i'm sorry if this, if this question comes across a little simple, but haven't government all around the world been printing money to get through the corona virus crisis? what is it? what are the other factors that play in lebanon that have, you know, cause it to have such a negative impact? sure, or liberal, has been in a crisis before the court on up and then make it kicks in, right?

so we had a negative growth and we have a loss of thrust in the currency in the liberties bound and we had the banking crisis. other countries don't suffer from those challenges as well. so they have some margin to print money without seeing the direct impact via inflation immediately in leather on since we did not, people did not trust their banking system, where we call the banking system actually collapsed. i mean, they had good reasons to drop that right. printing money meant that people would systematically ditch this money and try to convert it into the more safer and secure u. s. dollars. so in the specific case of level, since we already had a banking crisis and the government had already defaulted on the payment of fuel bonds, so the government is unable to pay back that we had a big crisis and bring money in the middle of this crisis. meant systematic hyper inflation and the valuation of guidance. all right, i'll come back to you joe mac,

raul. there's been no government for war 10 months now. no functioning government. how has that happened when the other work? because where there's no need to manage the cost to ship, we're still time or additional. there's a vertical submission to the former by mr. such and he has support was the law. and they couldn't focus government because one of the, the few back back and we have also the extended direction should reach inclusion where everybody was expected. so i think the election is approaching was how to get it on the west of the residential phase.

and have also been given lots of dysfunction in class every week. and you can speak or just like you don't have a buffer. the big issue is going to be big or somebody has to go with a clock at the right text voice for the collapse there. so you need to go, which the interest would be the case. so any level has no meaning unless you have it really government just want to get we saw it in this is in greece and left to get before the big decision that might base their own

personal. just so they have to splitting the stigma very hard and this is why the, the government question moving forward total the distance you want to call that. i don't think the living technically politically to take what was ok, hike of them. and do you agree with that assessment once you take on why the various prime minister designates, have been unable to form a viable government thing? i mean, i mostly agree with joe on this and i mean there is and as, as clearly being between and especially between alan and a very, very strong personal dimension to personal acrimony really. but, but i think if we, i mean, if we think about for a 2nd about the decisions that joel alluded to,

the massive big decisions that are to be taken. i think we realize that even tomorrow that the current con candidate, i mean i to may be able to pull my problem seems like you ation looked doesn't look as gleick on that front as it used to for the a few weeks ago. the question is really, i mean, can you government that is, has, that may be in state to actually take these decisions because it means moving against a very, very powerful vested interest. and it means paying a high political cost or major, but it could play as a green agreeing to paying political cost. and they're like just that mean a few things you can mention. you know, so the banking system is completely dysfunctional and bankrupt. you have to allocate the losses in the baggage systems that may amount to $60000000000.00, which is about 3 times up the current size of the economy. you have to, you'd have to distribute the losses. you have to perhaps restructure the banking

system. and that of course touches on questions of ownership and then about who's paying the price titian's linked to the banking sector. as each overlap there, we need, if we need an order of forensic audit of the central bank, the central bank has to be cleaned up before money comes in the country, nobody will put not dime as nobody else will put money into the system. as long as this is not clear up, i want to, i want to go there and just i want to touch you there. i want to i want to ask about the international donors because you made that point there about money coming in. international donors have pledge to help contingent on a new government being formed and i want to put that question to patrick martini. is that fair and what difference would that international money make? well, it is clear as your guests have already stated,

that is very hard for the liberties to form a government. let alone have the government implemented the forms arrive. international aid is needed in lebron on giving the size and the magnitude of the crisis, but to the international community have been very wide, telling the policymakers in lebanon. i won't give you any penny. if you don't implement specific reform that could actually help your country. because in level on we have received a lot of aids in the past year in the past decades, i say, and a lot of loans and all this money have been used inefficient to wait and look very clever. so this idea of conditioning money to reform. i think it's a very important idea because even if we have a government that is form, if the government continues to do the same on policies that lead us to collapse, then you know it's a key won't be very useful. you would need

a new government that is willing to engage in hard reforms, and those are the forms. after the clear you need to live subsidies and it has a political cost because people do not like that. you need to set a currency. also, you need to stop printing get money and some bankers won't like that because they would love to reimburse or the dollar deposit and live. and he's found, you know, used to live in the found. you need to open some sectors, the competition, namely electricity for the government is unable to run the sector. and those are all hard actually form with the government. be able to do those in the form. if for me, that's the real question. ok, don't mccall, is there something inherently wrong or perhaps in need of an overhaul about the countries power sharing. struct. where there's a village to energy there's still corruption on every level. the sure the way it's imported. i think it was less.

i'm not usually a big files, transition slow way to get this but just wo cutting a bunch of go. so i think carol should be priority more work. it's not possible that the, the new just to pay just the private. it's not supposed to be one of us will be one hour to the private should they want to pick a job which some sort of government should settle at a low risk point or what the legit so i don't see that we ok. how call them in?

does the public do you think have any faith any more in the political class? and if not, how do they get that confidence back? well, i mean i'm, i'm perhaps not the best person to speak for the revenue public or such. but i think, i mean it's, it's, it's quite clear that, that the leaders have failed their constituents. and i mean, i mean we, we see these like a moments of anger, the protest, rioting, and violence that happen time. and again, at the same time, i think also realistic, i mean this, this country is, is entering into a vortex of, of poverty. right? so the latest figures are like 80 percent of the population. i'm

a poor according to the world bank, and it's going to get even worse. i mean, in this situation, people may los those leaders, but they may still be dependent on them to get whatever is left of public service services or public resources. let's not forget to security situation has also been deteriorating and will continue to deteriorate. so nowadays soldiers, policemen are and $5060.00 a month rule is going to put his life on the line to, to guarantee security for that amount of money. so i mean, so very soon it will also become a criteria for not necessarily trust or dependency over that people have a political leader where, where the discipline could eda can and few and sure physical security in an area. so we, we are looking at a situation with a steady roads and the population will rally behind anybody who can

replace even a very perfunctorily those services that the statements proverbs to provide. ok. patrick, when they come back to you, you know, it's ok in talking about these hard decisions that any future government needs to make you're advocating for the lifting of subsidies? well, the short term impacts would that have on people who are suffering because according to the united nations, 77 percent of households in lebanon can't afford to buy enough food. i mean, where does that leave those people who are already going hungry? absolutely. so the main reason why we're in lebanon today is hyper insulation and the currency, the valuation, right? that's the real reason of the problem today. and the high for inflation is due to printing money. that's why we need to do monetary re for, to ease the suffering of people and to strengthen their liberties. now,

about subsidies. today people are unable to find fuel gas and medicine at the subsidized price. they are already being the mum subsidized price at the black markets. so we are actually living this situation already. the only difference is that when we live subsidies, we want to have to go and buy our fuel on the black market and we are not. we are uncertain about the quality of this fuel and there is physical danger associated to it, as we have seen in our guard earlier this morning, right? so actually getting those commodities back to the market, illegal way back to the gas station where they will stop competing on serving people instead of kicking people out and then said, and then trying to sell them those fuel on the black market. that's what, that's what is happening today, right? so basically you, we, we should go back to normal where those normal suppliers of fuel and mexicans are

able to operate really and for the population. this solution, i mean, is the international community, specifically, the french initiative has some ideas to help the population by starting a currency board in level. right. and the currency board today is able to reduce the exchange rate to strengthen the era by like around 50 percent. so basically you are able to increase the purchasing power of the population by moreover, i mean by, by quite, quite a lot. if we do 1234, this city form is independent from the fact that subsidies shouldn't be lifted in all for people to be able to get back to us. as you say, a lot of difficult decisions lay ahead. we'll leave it there for time. thank you very much to all of i guess patrick martini john mackerel and her women, and thank you to for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website. just sarah dot com. and for further discussion, go to facebook page at facebook dot com forward slash ha,

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