right now, offices, the government expelled me, that i couldn't hide from the truth as a tax on press freedom escalate. i work the al jazeera because they hold the line luxury ambrose. mm. ah 0100 hours gmc on al jazeera. i'm come al santa maria, and these are the headlines. what than 600 marches have taken place across the united states to defend women's reproductive rights. there are opposing tough, you abortion laws, particularly in texas. i did your castro was at one of the rallies in austin. oh, they came out in force to protest the country's newest and most restrictive

abortion law abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detectable at about 6 weeks of gestation. are now illegal in texas. 6 that's before most women even know they're pregnant. i don't think that, you know, old men shouldn't like politicians should be making the decision like the decision of what i can and can't do with my body. and i think everyone like every woman should have the right to decide when they want to have kids and how they want to have kids. and how many gather the texas law took effect in september. the bill that i'm about to sign that ensures that the life of every unborn child who has a heartbeat will be saved from the ravages of abortion. the law offers of financial reward to private citizens who successfully sue anyone who performs or enables and abortion, and texas doctors, nurses, even over drivers are at risk of civil penalties. attorney elizabeth myers says she

too could be sued for representing abortion clinics by the letter of the law. i am in violation of it. hm. and the laws are constitutional. so it's not really a long one through my bring in a few 1000 people had gathered at the texas state capital to protest the ban. they call it unconstitutional and resulting in women being forced to continue with unwanted pregnancies or having to travel to other states for abortions if they can afford it. but eventually, abortions may be banned in all states. that's the fear of marchers who also rallied saturday in washington and other major u. s. cities. they worry, the country supreme court is poised to overturn roe vs wade. the landmark case that gave american women the right to an abortion in 1973. julia kirkland says she had

an abortion years ago when doctor said her fetus had a fatal medical condition. that same procedure would be illegal in texas to day. there is a very real risk that my uterus would have wrapped her. if i weren't allowed to have the abortion, and although my life might have been saved, i could never have had children. after that, she went on to become a mother of 3 by choice. she says she hopes other women will be able to decide for themselves as well. id, jo, castro, al jazeera austin, texas. the other headlines in the united nation says one migrant was killed in at least 15 others injured. when libyans security authorities rounded up and detained at least 4000 refugees and migrants. it's described as one of the largest crackdowns and recent years. tens of thousands of people have rallied in cities across brazil, calling for the impeachment of president diable. sanara. protesters are angered by his handling of the corona virus pandemic. and the 600000 brazilians have died so

far. they also said the president is undermining democracy by trying to rewrite electoral rules. outgoing philippine president rodriguez. churches announced his retiring from politics fueling speculation. his daughter may run for the top job. he confirmed, he won't be signing for the vice presidency either next year's elections. the results of coff has 1st legislative council election have been announced. 30 members have been elected to the 45 member. sure a council the rests will be appointed directly by the countries. emir. no women though elected to the representative council. no joint european and japanese space mission to mercury is sent back its 1st images of the planet. the baby colombo mission is made the 1st of 6 fly by that the planet using its gravity to slope the spacecraft down. it's got as close as nearly 200 kilometers to mercury was launched back in 2018 and will soon release 2 probes into mercury's orbits. to look at your headlines to this our on our 0, the bottom line with steve clemens starts right now.

awe. ready ready hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question. after the latest scandal at the world bank. should that institution be trusted and should its plug be pulled? let's get to the bottom line. ah, once upon a time the world bank had an annual publication that ranked every country in the world according to the ease of opening and running a business. and it became a hugely successful and influential annual report. while now it's dead. the doing business report was supposed to be a useful tool for businesses and investors before jumping into uncharted waters. but as it became more important for governments that wanted to attract foreign direct investment, it also became more crucial to be rank highly. plus,

there was that prestige element to big rank, highly as an attractive place for business. then boom, a recent investigation found that countries such as china, saudi arabia, and others, were pressuring the bank to increase their scores. while other countries like chile and azerbaijan were having their scores pushed down for political reasons. so what does this tell us about the world bank and it's other reports. and if the mighty world bank is vulnerable to political and financial pressure, what should we say about smaller institutions in governments that are trying to fight corruption? they were talking with unit kelly, dean of the sanford school of public policy at duke university and author of score card diplomacy, grading states that influence their reputation and behavior. and for greece, who are a former officer at the world bank and the office of the un high commissioner for human rights and currently the managing director at our leadership. thank you both for joining me today. and let me just start with unit. can you help us set the stage for what has happened in terms of the accusations that have blown about the

world bank doing business report? sure, so the bank started publishing this week, 2004. i became quite an influential report. many countries trying to, to move up in the rankings that you said, and over time, countries work with the bank on what kinds of reforms can be undertaken. and the pressure, as you've described, has, has built over the years. and there are some countries that have put pressure on the back and in 20162018. there were some, some questions raised about some type of rankings. and last august, it was actually pause to the report was paused, so that an investigation could be undertaker about these 4 countries in particular and their rankings. and now, you know, recently the investigation came out and that way the bank reacted very fortunately . i actually saying we're going to discontinue the report altogether. so that's the

stage. mean, well let me ask you for bri, i mean, you work inside of the world bank. what's wrong with measuring one country versus another? what's wrong with looking at various criteria and trying to establish empirically not only how different countries compare, but what sorts of criteria help a political economy, a liberal market economy move forward. what are the flaws in that, in that formula? well, you know, steve of cost of his kelley is more suspicious. he's the owner, i'm doing business rankings. but what i believe that it's extremely important for the war bank to make an assessment of the ease of doing business in countries. in fact, worse than the world bank and do it. and that's why it's actually extremely unfortunate that the bank are to erase the dream business initiative, which

a lot of taxpayer money i've been spend to establish. because of ernest, the core behavior at the top of the institution. but there is that because of the fact that the board would she, the $170000000.00 a cost every year did not played. so go side role own issue with within your management. and so, you know, i believe that the bang should continue to missouri during business, but unfortunately, because of, of issue during business of a big v as to neither p it, it should be mentioned crystelina, georgia, eva who is 2nd in command at the world bank at the time now head of the international monetary fund has called the invest investigation. simply untrue, ah, how, how much is the pattern? it has been written about not only are in those who have been reporting on this case, but you know, the washington post just recently came out and just said, this is a big deal in a fully a full fledged editorial critique of the world bank and said we now have to take

the world bank with a grain of salt. as we look at these reports, how much of what we're seeing in the doing business report for brief, do you think has been part of the problem of other work that the world bank has done? well, you know, i agree with you. it is a huge deal because where did, where did christian to the seriousness of kings did. you should like the woven india map and the truth. you that steve, you, you might remember the word for it up in 2007. i reach actually, i think you kind of played a bit of a road and, you know, think then thus been discussion about issue the 18th on retaliation of the war bank . and the recent come and that mr. manpower, the true president of the bank said in which he said, well, we are going to have a hard look at, i'll get you. i know atx at our issue, the retaliation. that's not enough because all of his predecessor of medicine proclamation. and so we have 2 questions,

shoot the chas who other shareholder facilities to be at the head of institution. what is the book doing in terms of oversight? you know, when you have a city board seems like that should not be happening. and so i think it's key to remember that this is not only about doing business, it's about the church of the institution. huh. yeah, it, you recently wrote a very fascinating, informative piece on a call. what happened at the world bank doing business report and, and to just give your report credit, you know, in terms of responding to the i, m f managing director. ah, madam yoga, you said that she thanked the staffed her for doing his quote bit for multilateralism. when the rankings on china were changed, and i'm interested in your insights in this because your point is broader than the doing business report, is i understand it. your book that, that your studies have shown that these ranking reports always lead to gaming and

essentially always lead to cronyism if i'm getting it right. and my understanding your perspective on this correctly. so you asked earlier, what's wrong with banking countries and scoring them in different ways? and so i think there's absolutely nothing wrong. and it's actually a good idea in many ways i should make a and i personally have made no comments about the misconduct. of anybody in the world bank, i'm not privy to the investigation and comment on anybody's conduct but, but there are so many different ratings and rankings out there that this is really a phenomena that's growing over the last 30 years. and you know that you a state department, right? countries on how the performance human trafficking, we got a transparency index. i mean there are so many indices out there and this is also not the only one the world bank is doing. and so i think that we have to ask ourselves whether just because something goes wrong in particular report,

is that the reason to get rid of all these types of exercises? you know, there's so much information out there we can't consume at all. we can't process it all, and that's why we love ratings and rankings, whether it's a u. s. news and world report rating. you know, universities are, you know, whether it's the bank rating at the ease of doing business. and it is a way also for organization. sometimes we organizations to try to help define norms around certain things and to put pressure on countries and they see results. and so yes, not, no system is perfect. and there's a lot to be learned from the fact the ratings are ranking systems that can be how a ways of exercising influence in local governments more broadly speaking. well, i mean, i really appreciate that perspective, illinois jump active for free from it. and as you know, the criteria you're asking about can really matter a lot. and some, some have been critics of this process. it both of the bretton woods institutions

the i met the world bank had said that the essentially the values that are trying to be generated often work at odds with our mental issues with labor issues ah, received our works on the broad issues of inclusion and diversity l g b t q issues across the world. and that if those aren't somehow look at, you know, you go to michael porter at harvard university, said you want to be a successful fast growth city. those places in the world that are pro l g b t are the ones that do best and you can look at the rankings, but that kind of, ah, comparative scale on labor environment and other issues. at least people have quit, criticize and said they're not robust enough. that's why you had some pressure on countries like saudi arabia, francis for breach your thoughts. yeah. you know, i mean, of course, you know, that i will give you a piece of the high commissioner for human rights. and i believe that the assistant ability of economies, the chas. so d r a b o seemed. yep. who requires for them to make progress on human rights and

you know, i was always very upset to see that seed up whether the top of the chopped in doing business despite the fact that it criminalized, as tim said relationship. and actually steve bold attributed to stupid society, but one of the things that i, that i should mention, that there was progress. and in fact, the doing be the business report. as soon as 2016 started including a very prominent gender lends to the doing business and. and in a way, it's kind of thought to see that all this will is now going to good ways because of misbehavior. i'd that had moved institution fast. i, you know, you know, please go ahead. yes. so i mean, what you're referring to is the introduction of the women in the law into the business rankings. right. and, and we saw a really tumble, for example, when the women in the law are introduced into these rankings. and this goes

precisely to the point that these weightings and rankings. we had discussions about values, discussion about what, what matters, and when we talked about the global development index, and then we have the sustainable development. it is all about what should we be caring about. and so at the end of the day, it comes down to methodology and transparency and accountability, right? and when you have an index, unfortunately like the ease of doing business that, that i tried to put forward very scientific methodology. then this type of pressures are much more, it's much more susceptible to, to, to things going wrong because everything is being measured precisely as opposed to a lot of other ratings and rankings that use a broad, subjective categories of doing. you know, these are doing realities under performing the so doing great. and so i think this question of norms and up transparency and accountability are really important. and

i'm not sure that i'm not sure that the world that the ease of doing business report is going to be going to ways that you think your bank will be looking at other ways of measuring the business environment. and we also now have women in the law, there's a separate index that shows that. so that's also not going to wait. you let me just take this step forward further because you just re something that i think as if the core of something i been intrigued with. and that is, i don't know how to put it any other way. a kind of relative process where america's weight in the world continues to be important. but other nations are becoming vastly more important as well on a relative basis over time. and that means that the values in norms in china matter, the values and norms and india matter, or brazil, or other large, you know, stakeholders in the global system. you could even go to countries, us, for brief part about singapore, very small. they're small nations that really hit above their weight that have big

impact. we were talking about the u. e, for instance, is one of those that influence. so i'm interested in the values tension over the donor countries. the donor countries that sort of undergird the support for the bretton woods institutions and to what degree we have a values clash evolving and we have our head in the sand about it. and. and so your thoughts on that and i'll go to for briefs as well. yeah. so i do think we haven't values class, she normally see it was about road initiative and other things like this and i think back, you know, it's very interesting. i studied election monitoring a long time ago and initially all the lexia monitor organizations are very western . and then i started to see some russian organizations, some chinese efforts, other efforts to try to present alternative monitoring organizations. and so in the same way in the, in the space around ratings and rankings, i suspect that we will see more and more cases where different countries are taking

the lead and trying to, to, to present different values that should matter and rate and rank countries in different rice as a way of promoting their values just for briefs, your thoughts? yeah. you know, if you read the repo, the reason why jim came improve the ranking of china is because he won't china to contribute to the capital increase that your, the concrete would not contribute to that ships then surely to. and then similarly, the reason why improve the ranking of though your radio is because so you are, if you are paying reimbursable technical assistance to the bank. and so one of the, one of the clear sign you that of the european and western country to disengage fine and should, from this institution if leaving room to china on other countries to take the place . and then the other thing that i wanted to point out to you is that i mentioned that the board, the sitting book didn't place oversight roared. and one of the reason is because

the quality of the executive director has been declining over time. and the reason why it has been declining is because europe and countries and wisdom countries very often do not care about those institutions. and so china is coming in and saying, well, if you don't care about his institution, i'm going to feed that back to him. okay, you know, what are the other things have race that you and i have discussed before, is that sometimes you have excellent, excellent staff within the system, the bureaucracy of these but the, these institutions. but they're often over on visas that, that make them vulnerable to pressure from management that they are held hostage. much like we talk about other in human trafficking, people being held hostage by someone who is essentially of impressed them into service and threatening them with a being expelled from a country or something over their their password. i'm decision with

a power relationship is between managers who you've just said are largely derelict in their governance responsibilities in some cases versus the staff who are vulnerable in raising or challenging ah, the orthodoxies or the instructions are getting from managers. you know, the vast majority of the star 95 percent are incredibly dedicated and passionate people about the issue of development and eradicating extreme poverty. and so it's really sad to see that the reputation and credibility of the institution is being done by this new management. but as you mention, you know, it's very difficult to dissent in an institution when you would be quickly exposed from the united states. if you dare to criticize a young innovation because of your visa studies. and that there is another element which is crucial, is that the vast majority of the people that welcomed the doing business,

people were shocked them, contractor, many people that will not sit then that would have a contract in the next 6 months. and therefore the earth. so could not express decent. when you read that wilma had repo, it's the atrocious to see the threat of retaliation that are clearly made by the staff of missiles, georgia, and the stuff of prison and keep against anybody that would dare talk about the changing the routine unit. let me ask you a similar question because i think your critique has gone more to the core of these ranking reports. and my question is to you is, is, is because you also said a few moments ago. they don't necessarily have to be this way than other things could be good. is there some way to manage or organize a report that would be resilient against these kind of pressures that had been outed and discussed? is there some formulation that you proposed that would get on these kind of

comparisons, which for brea said, they're going to happen again. they can play a useful role. but, but you said fundamentally, they become corrupt just about every time. well, the bank of course, did try to have a firewall. i know many of the excellent people who worked on their report and they were definitely supposed to be firewall. so that's one way of trying to to do it. but the pressure is, you know, we're talking about kind of like china and russia, the pressures i met. it's not the 1st time they try to put pressure on whether or not they even should be ranking. like 7 or 8 years ago they were trying to say, yeah, you can have the data but don't, right. you know, so different, this is immense pressure. you know, i always is to have these things done by organizations that are not themselves, the powerful organizations that have the member say. so, you know, with, there's something that's a small, a fund that has something called a transparent report. and they wait the transparency of how all the big agencies

and all over the world are transparent. they are with their spending. and you know, it's very powerful tool, but it's, it's, it's a separate because it's a small and you know, doing it, but nothing is ever going to be perfect. and so i think at the end of the day, we have to say, are these readings and rankings worth it? and then when something comes out, you know, can you find ways to address it and improve it? certainly, united states trafficking in persons report has that political pressure in the past, but it's, it's still going strong. and it's important because it's difficult to exert pressure on country. it's difficult to get about the types of reforms in human rights in other areas. and if there are ways of saying this country is treating women better, this country has a greater percentage of women in parliament, etc. these are so tools that are allowed to get along. and so it is,

we hope that we will throw the baby out with the bathwater and that will take a good look. these are doing business report has done a lot of good work, but maybe it is an opportunity now to look at some of the things that were being measured by the bang. you know, very d regulatory in nature. and many people think that's the way to go, but the regulatory pressure is also has effects on unable rights, for example, i environmental issues. so maybe we can take that back in and come to an even better solution. but it's fascinating. you know, i, i, i feel like this discussion is one we should have been having years ago in this way to kind of look at these questions. and i guess, you know, one of the points of interest specs and, and perhaps humility, that i think of as an american america has been sprawling the world try to tell other countries, you know, how to organize that after the 20082009 financial crisis, i think a real questions on america's, you know, a qualifications to counsel about crony capitalism. i think after january 6th,

the insurrection in the u. s. capitol, it's harder for americans to talk about how to manage democracy, right? what should be on the rights of various parties within a, within a system, we're not, we're not trained. that's the u. s. side of this quite equation. and i just like ask you for breeze, you know, in, in, in, in closing, you know, what should our north star be? should we have a kind of alec heart ism like, you did just sort of describe that. we're no longer looking at any political system, per se, as the model. and we need to have an al, a cart selection across the board that constantly can be, is that the honest way to do this? well, you know, i think a merchant there when i approach that is completely impartial, even this is our right, because, you know, this time it was china on saudi arabia applying pressure. but you could imagine the united states doing the exact same thing, and therefore it is important that those institution remain impartial. that, that, that the still debate,

but don't feel that the bald bleed community that they will rule of all the countries coming together. that they both agree on the roots of the game. and, and therefore, i think, you know, to me, it, you know, it's important to realize that this, you know, the end of the world bank or the i m f that remains critical. but that we probably have to have a hard look at the church of institution. who do we up pointed ahead of the institution. and perhaps more importantly, is the city board playing it for the side rule? here in let me just, yeah, please go ahead unit. if i may, i mean these are doing this, this is not the only one out there. i mean, it is, there is a free for a lot and there are many produces a different rankings in the space that you know, competitive nothing. the heritage foundation was an index right now should monitor, i mean, that's many different ones out there and so cultivating broad universe of different types of measurements i think is beneficial. well, thank you for that. we'll,

we'll leave it there for now. but it sounds like we've got more work to do on the, on many of these list unit kelly professor at duke university of received our former officer at the world bank in the united nations. thank you so much for being with us today. thank you for having it. so what's the bottom line? a lot of people think this world bank scandal is bad news for globalization. why should government do the hard work of weeding out corruption and creating he cannot meekly efficient and fair systems if there's an easier way to look pretty to other countries and big financial power out of it. the answer really is that governments aren't that stupid. they always knew that the numbers were prone to manipulation, even if they loved the be in the top 10 or the top 20. the real problems here are hypocrisy and credibility. the world bank is a powerful washington based institution that influences the movement of billions of dollars and constantly counsels other countries on how to properly sculptor economies and societies. but the world bank is vulnerable to crony capitalism. then

so 2 are much smaller institutions and countries. and that's the bottom line, ah, discarded clothes from which nations are funneled to charities and sold to impoverished nations on an unprecedented scale. a massive industry sift through the unwanted garments to re so to some of the world's poorest inhabitants. but much of what arrives is unfit for purpose and is fueling and environmental catastrophe. people have power troubles to gonna to uncover the 30 secret behind the world's fashion addiction. that white man's clothes on edge is eda alex is a real world. revealed dramatic pictures from gaza in may. 2021. i've lived there for a number of years and it, there is nowhere safe. and god account done to his really missile attacks on for

timer books. why retires from the families, businesses, and media organizations? simply blue. nope, goes a 60 minute warning. oh no, jesse around. lou, how fast the hour and another check of the headlines for you on al jazeera, more than $600.00 marchers have taken place across the united states to defend women's reproductive rights of happened in the wake of tough new abortion laws, particularly in texas, which is effectively banned the practice. what's incredibly important that we make sure that we uphold roe v wade, and if that doesn't happen, we need federal protection under the law to make sure that women and doctors all

around the state of michigan and around the united states are not literally imprisoned. and are turned into criminals.