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tv   [untitled]    October 4, 2021 9:00am-9:31am AST

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you have to fight to define stereotypes, have the new england joined the stories we don't often hear told by the people who live them. we know machine. what language dick visuals are. look some of the book set. this is year on al jazeera. ah, i'm robot is in a, doha, the top stories on al jazeera by huge liter financial documents is exposed. what claims to be the secret assets of dealings of some of the boards richest people. the collection of really 12000000 files known as the pandora papers, was published by the international consortium of investigative journalists, roslyn jordan reports. this lake is really pump papers on steroids, world leaders, politicians, and billionaires with hidden vaults of wealth. a new chapter in
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a never ending story. the pandora papers is a leak of almost $12000000.00 documents that alleges, concealed assets, tax avoidance, and in some cases, money laundering by some of the world's richest and most powerful, more than $600.00 journalists, and 117 countries have been sifting through files for months as part of the largest ever global financial investigation among its findings, king abdullah, the 2nd of jordan, who used shall companies to build a real estate portfolio worth more than $100000000.00 with properties spanning malibu, washington and london has no indication or suggestion in our reporting that misses indeed illegal, but i think we have certainly asked the king why, why these purchases made through show companies. why has none of this been disclosed? publicly? representatives of the king insist no wrong doing is involved. they told the
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consortium that he used his own money, not jordanian government funds to make these legal purchases. the reports also st. canyon president hurl kinyata and his family have at least $30000000.00 in offshore accounts. mrs. president her for many years, and even a few years ago sat down with ah, a, b, b, c, interviewer, and said, if anyone has something to tell us that we haven't been transparent about, let them tell us. and i suppose today with the pandora papers were doing just that other notable leaders with lucrative holdings. the former british prime minister, tony blair, who the consortium says, avoid it paying hundreds of thousands and property tax on a townhouse by buying the company, which owned it. the check prime minister entre bobbitt up for reelection. the investigation found some of pakistan prime minister him wrong cons. inner circle also benefit from offshore trots. he has vowed to punish lawbreakers. quote,
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my government will investigate all our citizens mentioned in the pandora papers. and if any wrong doing is established, we will take appropriate action. some will question whether countries such as the u . s. and the u. k. are doing enough to regulate the use of shell companies and tax avoidance measures. analysts say this latest report makes it hard for citizens to trust their leaders, including in the middle east and the added weight exposes much more than just apps . these exposes. ringback this exposes, may i, she and, and money that is, that is a disaster from the sweat and intersection between business and ernestine, the excuse of the, ah, the allegations in the pandora papers are just that allegations. there is no proof that leaders mentioned in the stories broke any laws, whether those laws should be changed is
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a matter for public debate. rosalyn jordan al jazeera washington and he's 13 people to be killed in an explosion in afghanistan. capital, the bombing target of the entrance of the 2nd lodge is most incapable. no group has claimed responsibility. so it says north and south korea have restored a stalled communication channel. show young cut the hotline in august in protest against military drills. so conducted with the united states, levy as coast guard has intercepted a boat carrying around $500.00 refugees and migrants to europe. comes a day after security forces detained. thousands of migrants in the biggest cracked on in recent years. a rail tropical cyclone has made landfall on the arabian peninsula or killing at least 9 people in oman. and iran. shocking has been downgraded to a tropical storm after drenching alons capital. but it still causes risks for the u . e. and saudi arabia. those are the headlines coming up next on al jazeera. it's
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the bottom line. good by ah 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. well, 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
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to big rank, highly as an attractive place for business. then, boom, a recent investigation found the 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 and 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, grating states to influence their reputation and behavior. and for brief food 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 out 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
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business report? sure. so the bank started publishing this part, you know, 2004. i became quite an influential report. many countries of 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 some countries that have put pressure on the bank and in 20162018, there were some, some questions raised about some type of rankings and last august. and it was actually pause to that report was paused, so that an investigation could be undertaker about these 4 countries in particular and their rankings. and now, you know, recently and the investigation came out. and that way the bank reacted very fortunately. i actually saying we're going to discontinue the report altogether. so
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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 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 war bank and do it, and that's why it's actually extremely unfortunate that the bank are to erase the during business initiative, which a lot of taxpayer money i've been spent to establish because of ernest,
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the core behavior at the top of the institution, but there is that because of the fact that the board, which he the $170000000.00 a cool if they were year did not played so bill side road own issues 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 the big v as to disappear. it should be mentioned that 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
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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 through the seriousness of teams did. you should like the world been in the i m f and the truth. you that steve, you, you might remember that would be to offer 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 command that mr month by the true president of the bank fed 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 to question issue the child who other shareholder
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facilities to be at the head with 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. you're 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 staffer 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
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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 ranking 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 clear and i personally have made no comment 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 phenomenon that's growing over the last 30 years. and, you know, the, you a state department, right? countries on how they perform a human trafficking, we got a transparency. in fact, there's so many indices out there and this is also not the only one the world is doing. and so i think that we have to ask ourselves whether just because something goes wrong in a report, is that
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a 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 ratings and 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,
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the i met the world bank and said that the essentially the values that are trying to be generated often work at odds with fire mental issues with labor issues. ah, we should 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, even go to michael porter at harvard university, said you want to be a successful fast grow 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 a 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, princess, for breach your thoughts. yeah, you know, i mean, of course, you know, know that i will give you a piece of the high commissioner for human rights. and i believe that the system, the ability of economies, the child. so you are a, b, l seemed up who require yes for them to make progress on human rights. and you know,
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i was always very upset to see that seed up whether the top of the chopped in during business despite the fact that the crewmen that either sensate relationship and actually steve bold attribute to chew civic society. but one of the things that i, that i should mention, that there was progress. and in fact, the doing be the business re, booked. as soon as 2016 started including a very prominent gender lens to the doing business. and, and in a way, it's kind of sad to see that all of this, whoa, 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 saudi arabia really tumble, for example, when the women in the law right introduced into these rankings. and this goes
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precisely to the point that these weightings and rankings. we had discussions about value, discussion about what, what matters. and when we talked about the, the 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 and precisely as opposed to a lot of other ratings and rankings that use sort of broad subjective categories of doing, you know, these are doing realities under performing these are doing great. and so i think this question of norms and up transparency and accountability are really important
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. 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 waste. i do think your bank will be looking at other ways of measuring the business, the business environment. and we also now have women in the law. there's a separate index, it that so that's also not going to wait. you let me take this a step forward further because you just re something that i think as 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 in india matter or brazil, or other large, you know, stakeholders in the global system. you can even go to countries as for brief, talked about singapore very small, they're small nations that really hit above their weight that have big impact. we
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were talking about you a 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 pieces. well, yeah, so i do think we have values class, she normally see it with the mountain road initiative and other things like this. and i think back it's very interesting. i studied election monitoring a long time ago and initially all the election 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
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the lead and trying to, to, to present different values that should matter and rate and rank countries in different race as a way of promoting their values for reach your thought. yes, you know, if you read the report, the reason why jim keen improved the ranking of china is because he won't china to contribute to the capital increase that you're, the concrete would not contribute to that ships than should he to. and then similarly, the reason why improve the ranking of though your india is because, so you're already paying, rambo said, we're technical assistance to the bank. and so one of the, one of the clear thought is that both the european and western country to disengage financially from this institution, it's leaving room to china on other countries to take that place. and then the other thing that i wanted to point out to you is that i mentioned that the board sitting book didn't place oversight road. and one of the reason is because the
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quality of the executive director as 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 these 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 v says 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
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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 wouldn't be quickly exposed from the united states. if you dare to criticize a young innovation because of your visa studies. and there is another element which is crucial, is that the vast majority of the people that welcomed the doing business people
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were shot them contractor. many people that were not something that would have a contract in the next 6 months. and therefore, they also could not express dissent. 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 keim 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
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comparisons with for bree 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 work on their report and there 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 countries like china and russia, the pressures i met, 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 rank, you know, so different. this is a mess. pressure, you know, always is to have these things done by organizations that are not themselves, the powerful organizations that have the member state, per se. so, you know, with there's something that's a small, a fund that has something called a transparent to report and they wait the transparency of how all the big agencies
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have a new plan 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 person's report has that political pressures in the past, but it's, it's still going strong and it's important because. 2 it's difficult to exert pressure on countries. 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, you know, is treating women better. this country has a greater percentage of women in parliament, etc. these are tools that are allowed to get along, and so it is,
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we hope that we won't throw the baby out with the bathwater and that will take a good look. the ease of doing business with 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 bank. 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, environmental issues. so maybe we can take them 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 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 her real questions on america's, you know, a qualifications to counsel about crony capitalism. i think after january 6th,
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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 us 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 b, should we have a kind of, alec heart ism like, you didn't 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 ala carte selection across the board that constantly can be, is that the honest way to do this? well, you know, i think a merchant there will approach that is completely impartial, even this is our right because, you know, this time it was china and so d r a b are applying pressure. but you could imagine that you know, that they're doing the exact same thing, and therefore it is important that the things that you should remain impartial. that, that, that the debate. but don't feel that the bald bleed community that they will rule
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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 is not the end of the world bank or the i m f that remains critical. but the, we probably have to have a hard look at the church of institution. who do we up pointed ahead of the institution and broader, more importantly, is the stitching board playing it for the side rule here? 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 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 many different ones out there and so cultivating broad universe of different types of measurements i think is beneficial. well,
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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, on many of these less 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 mclee efficient and fair systems if there's an easier way to look pretty to other countries and big financial power out is. the answer really is the government's aren't that stupid. they always knew that the numbers were prone to manipulation, even if they loved to 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 sculpt their economies and societies. but the world bank is vulnerable to crony capitalism. then
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so 2 are much smaller institutions and countries, and that's the bottom line. ah, i look to see the world reveals dramatic pictures from garza in may 2021. i lived there for a number of years and it, there's nowhere safe. and god account done to his really miss all the tax on for time. it looks like we're tired, families, businesses and media organizations simply do not goes a 60 minute warning. oh no. jesse around with in a hands on celeste's working in asian africa, there'd be days where i'd be choosing and editing my iron stories in a refugee camp with no electricity. and right now where confronting some of the greatest challenges that humanity has ever faced. and i really believe that the
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only way we can do that is with compassion and generosity and compromise. because that's the only way we can try to solve any of these problems is together. that's lounges are so important. we make those connections. lou madison and don't have the top stories and i'll do syria. if you of his crime and sabby, i'm in is being sworn in for a 2nd time after he and his party secured a landslide victory in june elections. these are life pictures from ad isabela. abbey styled the pole as ethiopia as 1st attempt at free and fair elections. but it was overshadowed by a boy caused by the opposition as well as ethnic violence and the conflict in.

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