space x had when they started out, they've achieved most everything that they set out for up to now whether not it's been on timer or a little bit later, it is very, very impressive. and so they've been having that goal of mars in their sites for a very long time. and so i think that the steps that they're taking right now look like they're on the path to, to, to meet that goal. it's going to be challenging, obviously. but i think that they are their vision of having that as, as something that they want to achieve. i think that they have the right people to write technology and right now the right leader in order to be able to achieve those goals. ah, this is al jazeera, these are the headlines you. a secretary of state, anthony blaine can says the asia pacific region needs to be free of coercion, lane kin is an indonesia, on the 1st lake of history channel tour washington is trying to cancer. china's

influence. we all have a stake in assuring that the world's most dynamic region is free from portion and accessible to all. that's why there's so much concern from ne day to the southeast asia and from the meek on river to the pacific islands about beijing's aggressive actions. claiming open seasons there, all the stores open markets through subsidies to state run companies denying the export. so revoking deals for countries as policies. it does not agree with engaging in illegal on, reported, and i'm regulated fishing activities, countries across the region, what this behavior to change. we do to steers defense echoes. he has decided against punishing military personnel involved in a drone strike had killed 10 civilians in the afghan capital kabul. the operation on august 29th kelvin, 8 worker, and 9 members of his family, including children. an investigation found to strike didn't violate the laws of war, but mistakes were made. the u. k. prime minister has announced what's believed to

be the 1st confirmed death. all the person who had tested positive for the omicron variance. the government's is urging people to get booster shots. first case, obama cone has been the taxes in mainland china. authorities in the city of tents in say, the infected person recently enter the country and is not displaying sentence. china reported 101 you cases of covered 19. on monday. south korea has had its worst day of the pandemic recording. 94 deaths on tuesday, medical system as reaching its limits with the delta driven spread, leaving some people dying while waiting for hospice or bad. and the governor of the state of kentucky says at least 74 people have been killed in the region. on friday series of tornadoes, more than 100 people or so missing a powerful storm, tossed through the states and 5 iris, and that's you up to date,

keep it here and al jazeera insight story is next step. beyond the comfort zone, we're assumptions are challenged, traveled to the ends of the earth, and further experience the unimaginable of the people who live it is a probably the most stream situation i've been involved in. how quickly things can change award winning documentary, but also perception witness on i'll just the euro cove at 19 continues to take its toll on people and the economy lock downs come and go. borders close and reopen and the new immigrant variants creating more uncertainty. so, how can we deal with the economic implications of an open ended pandemic? this is inside story. ah,

hello, i'm come all santa maria. it was march 11th of 2020 a year and 9 months ago. give or take a few days when the word pandemic essentially took over our lives. and really can we say there's an end in sight? covered? 19 infections are rising again and health officials, erosion, countries to speed up their vaccination drives to contain new outbreaks. and the spread of more dangerous mutations. it is not a great picture. and what 2020 tort house is that the global economy cannot afford to take again, the kind of hits it took last year. and the international monetary fund says the economy is expected to recover even as the pandemic researches. but the speed of the recovery that is tied to strong policy changes not just by individual countries, but at multi lateral levels. the uncertainty means predictions can change at any

time, of course, which ends up affecting future investments. and while every day people hold on to their savings. so markets keep climbing despite all of that real world trouble. the impact of the pandemic is hid economies differently, but some effects have been felt while pretty much the same in all countries. millions of people losing their jobs when businesses before to close. during the initial wave of the pandemic, global supply champs still severely disrupted. as a result of staff shortages, many ports clogged with shipments, causing supply shortfalls and rising prices and international monetary fun predicts the cost of the basics. food and gas will rise 4.3 percent this year. the biggest jump we've seen since 2011. ah, what we can't solve all the world's problems, what we can talk about them with our 3 guest starting in johannesburg with lorenzo . if you're a monte, who is a professor of political economy at the university of pretoria and the founding director at the center for the study of governance, innovation in london,

vicky price chief economic adviser at the c e. b r, the center for economics and business research and a former u. k. government advisor and in she's walker. we have suggest, tucker, she threw the dean of the school of management at the university of she's ok and i thank all 3 of you for joining us. today as a say, i don't think we can to solve everything, but we can maybe figure out which sort of direction we're going in the run. so i'd like to start with you, primarily because of your title. you look at political economy and i've always thought of this pandemic. certainly the reactions to this pandemic as being almost politics versus economics. political decisions versus. busy economic once has that been the problem, but it's a problem with everything. it's all been politicized. well, i think the politicization of depend on my kids is becoming more and more evidence . and i think mostly in the 2nd phase, the 2nd year at the beginning, we were taken by surprise. you know, no one knew exactly what to do. but what is surprising is that after 2 years of

having lived with the buyers and having a global economy, having global institutions, we're still acting as if it was the 1st day that would happen after south africa discovered the barrier. and, you know, the whole world panicked, they closed down flights, there were no global institutions that to, you know, that, that, that initiated that was a unilateral group by some countries without even making a phone call without even coordinating on the most basic thing. having an enormous in negative impact on the economy, probably for no reason. so why did i do it? okay, you just said you've just been a reason. but why is it just nature reactions? is it, is it, is it almost nationalism and protectionism by country said, whoa, we just gotta shut down. we gotta lock it down. i think so, i think it's an e jerk reaction is a lot of matures and it's the fact that perhaps we have to realize we don't really have a system of global governance that is in place. i think no one takes the world health organization seriously. and governments do what day, what they feel, you know,

what i feel is right. they don't even listen to science anymore. you know, scientists have said from the very beginning, what hold on this parent may actually not be so severe in actually need good news because maybe we haven't, you dominant virus, which it brings about a much milder disease. right? so that's what you want to want to turn. a pandemic internet be damaged, that it's already eaten endemic. that's what we said from the very beginning. and yet governments acted motivated by panic. i don't think there is a conspiracy behind it, but that is even more scary that we are globally run as if we didn't really have a global institutional system for wiki price in london, you used to advise the u. k. government, what, how did you feel that i've done a few between just during the pandemic itself, but what you know, was the government really listening to the advice and the potential outcomes of, of locked downs and other such a border closures? well, the interesting thing in the u. k certainly is that the scientists were calling for

tied to measures a little bit before they the sort of on the current very variance impact was properly calculated. so they had been dis, concerned that things were getting slightly worse, that cases would be picking up in the winter. and they had already been, of course, some increased travel restrictions that were coming along. in addition to what we've seen more recently, which is go back to working from home as much as you possibly can. and the discussions that we having about cov, if possible, and so on. so i would suggest that in this case, the politicians here would say we have been listening to the science even though, as has just been said, maybe the army can barion isn't as dangerous as people had thought in terms of its impact, even though it's obviously spreading a lot but what has been happening because of the concerns that we're ready surfacing in various areas we have seen in europe,

certainly the netherlands and and other countries tightening up question differently. we saw that in austria within you locked down the cannot make situation is obviously looking a little bit weaker and most forecast is where we're ready revising their expectations both 420-214-2022 downwards. even before the latest. where is surface in a serious way we're getting there in any get you would hope there, vicki? we have moved past mass lock downs harsh lock downs and you i was listening to vac murphy, the u. s. surgeon general. he was saying, you know, that was our only weapon in 2020, at the start of the pandemic. that's all we had. we locked down. now, we've got, obviously vaccines and we've got, hopefully experience. we should move past those run, especially having seen the economic impact. what a substitute to that, of course, i mean the vaccines have been very significant and the fact that now everyone is

trying to get a 3rd booster as well. and that's been happening also across europe is a real positive step. now nevertheless, i think what governments are doing is using right now to think what politics it, but as a threat of closures and passports as a way to encourage all the vaccination to get vaccinated. and those who have not had the boosters to do so as quickly as possible by reducing the date that the agent which you start having the boosters initiated, which is what's going on right now. so it's going back to all the adults, not just those over 50 or 60, or those are the 40 that we saw. now, the target here is every adult should be asked to have a booster at the end of this month, which is december. so, i mean, that's a big, big issue really because what it means is that indeed, if you do get those boosters, then as you suggest that there's luck, dams make very little sense. let's bring somebody to talk to you then to our conversation of you from asia there. i actually haven't heard an awful lot about

the situation in japan recently. it was all the headlines, obviously leading up to and during the postpone to limit games. how are things there now? well, it has simmered down quite consider really, if you look at the, the amount of number of people who are contracted with coven 19, it's well under 50 per day. so we're doing a very good job here. but the negative implication that's been cause on the economic side, we all know that, you know, the interest rates tend to get depressed compared to the natural rate by approximately 0.5 to 1.5 percent over span of well over 1020 years. meaning that there will be a continuous spread of inequality, which is what a lot of people talk about, but particularly in japan, which is a very much of a tearing society. so. so basically among c o, c nations, japan has

a very low amount of gap of inequality. but that said, people are extremely sensitive about this. so this also connects not only to the economic side, but the political motives. and i think there was a very good, an expression that was said by the gentleman about, you know, government being motivated by the coven 19. but we're getting a, quite a lot of policy changes that are being enhanced, which obviously affect the economy. and, and it's not only that, there's also a vast change of, of distribution chain that's taking place right now. basically, due to the fact that we're getting a big war of a given a, between the united states and china and japan obviously being swirled into this. ah, yeah, let me interrupt you. john quickly said, your thing is, you've brought up the issue, all of our supply chains and the light. this has been

a, a product of the pandemic. people got laid off. you couldn't keep up with the work . now the demand is picking up. now you're getting shipped stuck out because there's not enough people to do all the work she has. is there a bigger lesson? has there been a bigger lesson learned here about how we do business about how we tried about how we ship. i know we're a very into connected well, but stuff still has to get from a to be physically. well, the answer is yes and no. yes, we have to start to introduce, you know, and thrown away the old status quo of methodology in doing business. but at the same time, again, this coven 19 has basically given a lot of wake up goal, in particular to the, i would say, nations that had been oil or the alarmed by the aggression by the chinese. so basically people are walking away from just in time system to just in case system from j i t into j, i see which theoretically might sound very good because people want to prepare for,

you know, issues like, you know, coven 19. but from the economic theoretical point of view, that's suicide, you want to increase your inventory when your demand is unclear. but again, the geopolitical factor is winning out the economic factors. because obviously we all understand the threat that has been displayed by the chinese government. so obviously we're seeing this coven, 19 issue, having a very big indirect impact on the geopolitical side, which directly impacts our supply chain, which directly impacts our economic situation. oh, and then let's try something else. so just direct missed all 3 of you then come to you one by one inflation. i mean, joe biden has admitted and said this is a problem. he thinks it will start to come down quickly, but it's, it's, it's a scary prospect, isn't it? lorenzo? i'll start with you when you're by 6 stop to come, move out of reach your food and your petrol in the light. absolutely,

and there was a for some time, you know, there was this idea that inflation was temporary. and you know, like even the european central bank, for instance, you know, like assumed that it was a temporary change in was believe to be a law inflation scenario. now we understand that this is not going to be the case. the inflation is back back for many different reasons. one of them is mostly, you know, like commodity prices, energy prices, and so on and so forth. but i think again, you know, what we're seeing is a perfect storm, potentially perfect storm, you know, like of inflation rising and economic depression at the same time. that's why in this, at this point in time, after 2 years of a, an unprecedented path. and they're making our generation who you would have expected governments to have learned the lesson. what the previous speaker was saying is extremely important. you can't do business when you don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow after what happened with on a chrome. and i keep saying this,

not only because i'm based in south africa, because i've seen how little thinking went into it. now business people all over the world are going to probably think what's gonna happen if there's and you. are we going to see this again? are we going to see this erotic behavior? again, walden would expect, of course know the global governance is going to work. you know, there will be parents that week in notation. maybe in 2 years time is going to be not a virus. what are we going to do? we're going to shut down a planet every time. what were you that we would expect to see? governance is fissions step in and say, hold on guys. we do have protocols. we do have technologies. we now have systems. we're a mature society, we're not let by, you know, like sentiments where i'm led by gut feelings. and this is precisely what is not happening. so my hope is that we have learned the lesson now and that the flight band, a travel band is relieved, immediately lifted. and also that we learned that in a complex world, you need to have a functioning global governance system to operate. and you cannot just simply go

back to inward looking nationalism is when that happens, then we expect it to happen again. and economics is all about perceptions. if perceptions are negative, that's what it what you're going to get. okay, vicki i, i, i like what lorenzo saying, ah, the idea that we have to look at this obviously is a much bigger picture in an, a global picture. the problem though, i see with quote, unquote global governance. is that and this is really simplistic, but every once different, all leads to 100. also countries in the world are very different. they have very different needs. and there is this protection, as i mentioned, it before, this nationalism which has no, we got to look after our own 1st. now that's understandable. how do you, how do you get global governance in past that sort of thinking? well, the interesting thing is though, that if you look at what each of the big countries have done, they're the ones in the west. they put huge amounts of money into the economy. and in an interesting way, for me, facilitate to trade to operate in, you know, almost near normal. so what, what the w t o, the world trade organization?

what was going to happen in 2020 was that we might see a drop as they thought the time of between 13 and 32 percent. i remember correctly in the world trade. in fact, that full was much less. it was about 5 percent. and what we seeing in 2021 is a huge increase in trade dies taking place, which has kept quite a lot of nations going. so 1st of all, there was this huge and which of fiscal stimulus that we saw happening. second, we had big monetary injection in many countries, which then of course, are, you know, help hugely with demand as it started developing again. and i think that has helped quite a lot of countries which have benefited from high commodity prices in terms of if that was the export that they were involved in. mostly. so the did reasonably well, because you seen oil prices go up and so on, but that has been because this extra stimulus and money that was put into the world

economy, if you like, a lead to demand being really rather strong and supply not being able to respond so before we come to depressed. the reality is that cause because inflation high because of those circumstances when you suddenly increase demand, without supply being able to respond, that's where you'd get to. but also if you look at the forecasts for world growth for next year, they're still pretty positive. we're not talking about depression. yeah. we're talking about still very substantial growth, which will have made up actually for the fall of 2020. yeah. of 2022. seeing, as you mentioned, that i got i m f numbers here from their projection and october where they were talking about global growth this year of almost 6 percent and almost 5 percent next year. all up from minus 3 percent in 2020. so all of that, maybe you can explain 5 years, is that a good and be sustainable? that's important because you've talked about lots of money being pumped into the system, vicki, which is great, but you can't keep doing that. and it's absolutely true. and that's exactly what's

going on right now. for example, the u. s. is reducing the, the amount of bonds it's buying back in from the market every year. if you remember, it's been something like $120000000000.00 worth of bonds has been buying since about march 2020 every month. i mean this huge amount and it's reducing that now it started doing so from november. and that is reducing that by about $15000000000.00 a month so, but the middle of next year is not going to be buying anything any more. now that may change a little bit if the economy slows down, but, but we have seen is indeed there is a little bit of withdrawal of monetary support taking place right now. but also the same time what is happening is that they are looking again at maybe not increasing interest rates, anything like as fast as they would have done otherwise. so we're not talking about things really tied names. hugely. we're talking about the, the,

the central banks being much more careful right now in terms of what they perceive the economy might be doing in the future and being therefore, once again there to make sure the economies do not suddenly get into that depression. that perhaps some people feel may happen, other was sort of stuck lation nobody likes, but i think they wanted to restore it. is an fiscal artist seem to be quite prepared to stand around for a little bit longer and watch this space like and act if necessary. so videos, nodding their in, she's rock, i do want to jumpin, well, yes, i think um, if i may add one more thing, i think the international court nations amongst the central banks have been become a lot more eloquent than that say they can to ago. so obviously we can have the mutual, i would say, a corporate business that could kick in all. and also we must have that considering the fact that, you know, most of these advance nations have really swelled up on their depth. so obviously

to sustain a calamity or i should say calmness within the financial market is a must particular for countries like japan where you know our debt to g, d, p will, over 200 percent. and our demographics clearly showing their birth rate is only 1.34, and the fact that you know, our senior citizen is going to have a majority in, in 2025. obviously, you know, the rise of interest rate will be in armageddon scenario. and certainly it's not only for to remember the rest of the world as well, and especially under the situation where we're talking about a lot of spending, but not where the money is coming from. as i look at all 3 of you here, just has to reminded me the fact that you're all at home, you're all, either in a living room or a home study and you're on skype or 0. this is obviously been one of the big changes that we've seen in the last year and a half. i wonder if i could get just from each of you in the runs. i'll start with

you just a view from your part of the world of changes. did people stay at home have that? i feel people have just actually started heading back to the office again and maybe we didn't learn a lesson there and really change our thinking on how we work and how we communicate lorenzo. you festival. i think a lot of people have changed colors. people want to keep to change. a lot of people have are taking more seriously what the, what the pandemic is offering us in terms of making our jobs more sustainable. having a lot smaller, you know, like the less negative impact on the climate. but we also have to understand that a lot of the, the experiences that we have our forego the privileged, you know, like there are a lot of people here in south africa for instance, that don't have to luxury of working from home. they're likelihood depend on what happens out there on the street in small businesses, micro, micro enterprises and some so forth. we have forgotten about that. i think he will, to this conversation with forgotten about the fact that the vaccination program is

not working, but belief that a lot of people in africa are not vaccinated and they're not vaccinated. not because they don't want to get vaccinated. but because the countries of the north, the rich countries f bought all the vaccine to back from a, even people that don't need it. because now they're vaccinating the, you know, like newborns and babies when, even the maddox maddox in africa are not vaccinated, doctors are not vaccinated. healthcare officials are not vaccinated, let alone the citizens. so this is what i'm talking about. when i say this, pandemic has shown a lot of selfishness, and it's self defeating selfishness because at the end of the day, world suffering from new taishan senior parents coming from those countries where people haven't been vaccinated and who would have expected something totally different. and eventually get the economy would benefit from it. because if we were able to get rid of this to turn it into an endemic something that you can manage, we could go back to having a much better the, you know, like an economic trajectory and at the same time, retain good things we have learned during this past 2 years,

vicki just quickly and then such as quickly as well, what things like in london to keep it. i know, of course johnson has told people to stop working from home again, but before that i mean what i just heading back again of them certainly where the keeps are beginning the underground was beginning to get quite full and, and people are really shane going out again, and also meeting with a colleague so, but there was a bit of a hybrid situation that had developed. so most people would go into the office for just a few days a week. quite a lot of work from home still happened, but just to learn just saying it is a big, big issue because a number of people don't have the luxury have not been able to do that. and what you found during condemning itself is that the high you get paid. well you got paid, the more likely it was the task that you were doing. there was a bigger share of the stuff you can do from home. the lower pay scale, people either lost the job, so i had to go out to still do face to face job security and sort of delivery takeaways and what have you. so right? yes. creating a bit of inequality without me said you are 30 seconds with your house,

things they're going back to work or not. well, we are, but you know, i'd like to basically hope that this will continue in the sense that, you know, new methodology, new ideas breaking the ice type of, you know, issues will continue because one of the problems of japan have always had, is sticking accessory to status quo. yeah. so you know, hybridization work, i think is certainly something that is welcomed and should be perpetuated from your own words. so do i talk a sheet, vicky price lorenzo, go to monte. thank you so much for your time and your thoughts did i really appreciate it and thank you. as well for watching is always more on line out 0 dot com. you can visit us, you can catch up on any of our previous editions, or you can at facebook dot com forward slash ha, inside story as well. for more discussion on twitter at ha, inside story, i'm at kamala j. e. if you want to drop me line, thanks for joining us and come out santa maria from the whole inside story team. to bye for now. almost egan said,

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i've been covering all of latin america for most of my career, but no country is alike. and it's my job to shed light on how and why the 20th centuries 1st genocide, thought to have set the blueprint for the holocaust is too often overlooked. the sand will come and bury everything. but for some reason the sand refused to bury these people. they want this story to be taught over a century on the injustice still echoes down the generations on the path to reparation is nothin easy. one, namibia, the price of genocide, people and power on al jazeera. this one's feared warlord during liberia's decade long civil war says he's now fighting a drug epidemic. the work that the former warlord joshua boy, he has done with 3 children, has attracted to help with an ass protected,

and in effect from public prosecution. despite the recommendations made by the truth and reconciliation commission for this former warlord, liberia has become the frontline of a drug war. it cannot afford to lose. he says it's a battle he will fight out of responsibility and killed for his past crimes. and for his country, ah, on his 1st self of in asia pacific 2 or the u. s. secretary of states reaffirms america's commitments to push back against chinese influence. ah, i was, i'm how am i he did. this is out a 0 my from doha also coming on. no punishment for us military personnel who

carried out a drone attack in afghanistan that killed 10 civilians including children.