down in the aftermath and to return of the civilian lead transitional government a ship from the same company that blocked the suez canal has run aground in the united states. the ship called ever forward stopped moving on that sunday at chesapeake bay in the state of maryland efforts are underway to re float the 1000 foot vessel. it follows last is incident which so the companies ever given container ship bought block the suez canal for 6 days for hello you watching al jazeera, these are the stories were following the sour ukrainian authorities say dozens of people have left to marry a poem. as a 1000000000 convoy of more than 160 vehicles left the besieged city, which has been surrounded by russian soldiers for 2 weeks. 400000 people are still trapped there without food, water,

or power. several russian strikes have targeted ukraine's capital cave. at least 2 people were killed when a 9 story residential building was struck. the u. s. is worn in china against helping the russian war effort in ukraine. american and chinese officials met for talks in rome. washington says china has signal didn't, might aid russia, but by ging denies those claims. the u. n. has a growing concerns that the war in ukraine could lead to a global food catastrophe. you could alone provides more than half of the world food programs which supplied full, full and fertilizer brought fertilizer prices are skyrocketing, supply chains are being disrupted. and the costs and delays of transportation of important goods when available are to record levels. and all of these easy things,

the broadest the harvest. a woman has been arrested after interrupting the main news program and rushes channel one with a banner that called on view is to not believe the propaganda and to stop the war. the broadcast quickly cut away from the demonstration. she worked as an editor at the station and said she was a shame for promoting kremlin propaganda. for every disrupt, restarted in some breaking news, and indian court has upheld a ban, preventing women wearing head scarves in the classroom. in the sight of canada, the band came into effect last month and led to protests around the country. and knew corona, virus infections in china dabbled to more than 5000 on tuesdays. the country faces its biggest outbreak since the started a pandemic. those are the headlines i'm emily angland. the news continues after counting the cost. stay with us. a story of launch, deception life and death,

and israeli spy operating on the deep cover in syria. knowing that discovery would meet certain death. algae 0 well tell to gripping story of most at spy. eli komen operated on the cover in syria in the 1960 a notation career that ended in public execution. eli cohen mos at agent $88.00 on al jazeera. ah hello, i'm adrian finnegan. this is counting the coastal al jazeera. you look at the world of business and economics this week, the u. s. and u. k ban russian oil of the european union announced its plans to drastically shrink its reliance on gas from russia. will high prices undermine global energy

security, high fuel costs and long the roots, the bypass russian ass base house sanctions against moscow. a battering the global aviation industry with ticket prices and freight rates poised to go up. an sri lanka reels from food shortages and power cuts as it struggles to repay its foreign debt and pay for imports. is the country on the verge of defaulting on its debt. ah, it is the world's largest exporter of natural gas and the 2nd largest oil exporter energy is rushes biggest source of income. but now u. s. president joe biden has imposed a ban on russian oil and gas in response to the invasion of ukraine. the u. k. says that it will phase out russian oil by the end of the year, while the european union is aiming to cut gas in ports by 2 thirds this year. now the move will wasn't inflation and push up fuel prices of washington scrambling to

find alternative suppliers. l t 0 is priyanka groups are reports a major escalation of use economic sanctions against russia. 4th invasion of ukraine, u. s. besson joe biden is going off to president vladimir potentate, most lucrative industry. we're banning all in ports of russian oil and gas in energy. that means russian oil no longer be accessible us porch and american people were deal another powerful blow to pull information by to acknowledge the latest sanctions could push up us gas prices. consumers are already paying on average more than $4.00 a gallon up from $2.77 just a year ago, due to high inflation. as the economy recovers from the pandemic. but it's europe that will feel the effect of moving away from russian energy more acutely than the us. the european union imports 27 percent of its oil and 40 percent of its gas

from russia. the block plans to cut its dependency on russian gas by 2 thirds this year todd todd. but it's possible if we're willing to go further and faster than we've done before. but experts say this position will mean difficult compromises. they'll have to be additional use of nuclear, which is supposed be phased out in certain countries though i'd be more call use, which won't help climate goals. the u. s. a. seeking to persuade opec members to ramp up output among them. only saudi arabia, the united arab emirates and quail, half spare capacity. and washington is also turning to countries. it has shunned and imposed sanctions on it's making overtures to venezuela and attempting to see a nuclear deal with iran that could bring more oil into the market. priyanka gupta

for counting the cost. joining us now from london, toby whittington lead economist at oxford economic study, great to have you with us on not counting the cost is this ban on a russian imports of oil in it into the u. s. largely symbolic. what is it that the u. s. use is something like 8 percent of russian oil. is that correct? yeah, that's, that's right. i mean, i think you're up to write it as a logic symbolic moves. and, you know, obviously you us demand a u. s. usage of russian oil is fairly limited and i think substituting out to, to alternative suppliers, i think probably within the north american market would be possible. there may be some sort of frictional cost in the, in the process of doing that. but those, those would be sort of temporary and, and point moderate. and so we wouldn't expect too much of a, a price shock from this movement in terms of oil is already one that who could plug the gap, the u. s. appears to be making attempts to repair relations with venezuela,

which of course has as huge oil stocks. it's infrastructure isn't, isn't it any fit shape at the moment? and of course, the iran nuclear deal talks could come to some sort of fruition and sanctions might be lifted on iran. could venezuela at iraq, perhaps help offset the shock? i think those are both too key key markets and certainly given the situation we're in there is an impetus now to try to bring those to countries back into the the global oil market. discussions are ongoing. as you say, i think venezuela's oil infrastructure is in a slightly poorer state than what it is in iran. i think i estimates put them around about 700000 barrels a day that they could start exporting or iran is a bit higher referral. about $1300000.00 barrels a day that they could put out by the end of the year and with potential to operate even further. and so, so those are important markets, but i think the key sort of produces are as ever the, the major opec produces

a saudi arabia and, and the, you a now, as well. ok. and he took about europe looking to, to win itself off of russian gas when we're not talking about oil here. and perhaps it's plans being a little overly optimistic at the moment. who would fill the gap? there? would it be countries like kata, australia, i mean, you're looking at shipping gas from the other side of the world to, to europe. i cannot be done yet. the 3 major sort of energy exports is of the u. s . cats are in australia. i think australia is pretty out of the picture. they overwhelmingly supply the australian market. so that the asian market, and of course, getting gas from, from shipping gas from australia to europe is a huge endeavor. i think it would come primary from the us and, and cattle. ah, it's not entirely clear that's enough. export capacity exists at the moment. so as part of the planet they want to withdraw reduced dependents on russian gas by 2

thirds within 2022. so that's $91.00 centrally to, to do it. and half of that 2 3rd saving is going to come from extra allen g imports at which, which roughly equates out about a 60 to 70 percent increase in imports of allen j. i think that's highly optimistic . given, given current export capacities and also input capacity is a valid g. i think if they could reduce dependence by maybe a 3rd, that would be very good. i think 2 thirds is it's probably pushing it too far really. and is this, i mean, this is all about sanctioning washer, it's, it's, it's a financial penalty for rush rates. it's aimed at causing he can only calm to russia . ultimately, though, is, is russia still going to be able to sell its oil and gas? will there be buyers out there? will it be able to sell, so sell at market price? is it really going to hurt washer? well, i think i got a bill in the long run. i think, you know, if russia loses access to west market is most access us,

it was only is access to europe as europe seems to be implying that you know, that will, will have an impact on russian, on demand for russian oil, which should reduce the price that they can pay, i mean that they're going to be able to sell to other countries, china and asian countries and so on. but that sort of reduced number of buyers will necessarily, i think reduce the amount of price they can pay. i think that's true, also gas as europe 6th, when itself off your russian gas rusher is in the process of transiting to the china building. you pipeline infrastructure to supply gasoline from the field down and down to china. but that's a massive interest. an effort that take some time to, to come on line. and also china will be in quite a strong bargaining position, of course. and, you know, with russia not having many other customers, china will,

will be able to, to leverage that position to negotiate themselves. ability also yeah, in some way i think it rushes the price that they can achieve for their and jack sports will, will undoubtably go down, toby, it's been great to talk to you on counting the cost many thanks indeed for being with us. thank you. ah, the surgeon oil prices as push the cost of global jet fuel to a 14 year high airlines and travelers are facing steep fair increases just as air travel was beginning to recover after cove at 19 will adding to the burden of high prices are the circuitous flight paths needed to avoid washing airspace right now. the biggest impact is on flights between europe and asia destinations like japan, south korea, and china. longer flight times lead to higher staff costs, limited cargo carrying ability, and they raise maintenance costs. and russian airlines have also been hit by the air space bands. they won't be able to access parts and services that they'd

sourced from a broad to discuss all of this. joining us from london, peter morris, chief economist at the asian consultancy ascend by syria. peter, good to have you with us on counting the cost, just as airlines were beginning to spot. a patch of clear sky is after the horrible time they've been through with the pandemic. here we have more turbulence caused by higher oil prices or just how bad an impact is this going to have are already suffering aviation sector. well, it's yes. another negative. i mean, if, if you look at this proportion of globalization that is linked directly to russia, it's of the order of 6 percent or so which she can say no could be managed without . but on the other hand, what you're talking about yet, another negative factor, and we haven't even got to the level of the increase in fuel prices, the appears to have been linked to this whole invasion. so what will higher oil

prices, higher fuel prices mean for the likes of you and i, the people who use the airlines is that going to lead to higher ticket prices for us? it's never going to lead to higher ticket prices, but there will be a can differential in new fact that when you're traveling, for example, within europe, the proportion of the ticket feel is lower. whereas when you're traveling to australia, for example, it's a much higher proportion. so it will mean that shawl is impacted less than long haul travel. that's more than 3 hours. not only is, is fuel going to cost more, but airlines are going to have to use more of it to fly around russian air space. a vast part of the globe that they now have to avoid. i think there's 2 fact to say 1st, yes it will increase flight times by between one and 4 hours between europe and asia. and on the other hand, if you look at the level of closure on international services,

it's taking place in japan and, and china, the moment that actually that traffic is very badly hit anyway. but again, this is yes, another negative that added in. i'm one thing it does mean that the, the airlines that have new fleets, the term more fuel efficient saving, perhaps 20 percent of fuel on journeys will actually have a competitive benefit compared with others. they'll still be suffering in paying the high cost, but they will have something of a competitive advantage. what does the, the ban on, on, russian aircraft flying into european space, for example. what does that mean for russia's aviation sector? well, it's been very badly hit as, as symbolized by the airflow withdrawing services internationally from the 8th of march. so as a consequence, they're not flying for fear that the planes could be intended for something like

$500.00 aircraft, according to our databases that are least into russian entities from international leasing companies. and those effectively, the leases have to be terminated by the 28th of march. so that means that any aircraft that sent flying outside can be impacted. and also under international law, the airlines are supposed to be handing those aircraft back. if they don't hand them back, because they simply can't at the moment due to, to circumstance, what does that mean for the international leasing companies? they're going to lose money, of course, because these, these aircraft are sitting on the ground in russia. they think they can't get to them. it is a major challenge, one way or another. and the thing is we can only look at the unfolding and impact of the sanctions and so on. but it is clearly one of the major impacts that will be seen in russia among russian air travelers realizing you can't

fly as easily or as cheaply she did before. and it will mean that, for example, the middle east now lines who do fly to russia will actually have a significant captive market. we lost a lot of airlines due to the pandemic. it just wasn't survivable for, for many of the smaller airlines. all those running on on very tight operational budgets with this continuing agony now with the air space restrictions around russia with the increasing fuel prices. do you think that we'd like to see other airlines going on? it's going to increase suppression. ultimately, it's really what the impact on individual countries g d p is because it's, it's g d p and the ability of people to buy tickets effectively that drives the airline business forward. and one of the concerns is the impact in terms of g d. p

growth will actually reduce aviation growth as well. but none of these things are posted. this is the basic point all looking at a little bit. please get them over to say the least. peter, but anyway, thank you really appreciate you outlining all of that for us. peter morris, that london now food shortages, power cuts and long lines for expensive fuel sri lanka, is facing its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948 international rating agencies. a warning that it's on the verge of defaulting on its debts, but the government has refused to seek an iron f bailout, and insist that it can handle the crisis on its own. al jazeera michelle fernandez reports from colombo spending hours in queues has become known across she lanka, starting with food, rice, sugar and mid powder. now it's cooking gas and diesel that arissa supply. that body that allows them all day. i haven't eaten from the morning and i can't even go

drink some water line. i would lose my place otherwise made it have only me that i'm not big enough to spending so many hours in cues, we can only run about 2 and a half days. we can't keep doing this, so we appeal for this problem to be solved. the shortages are a result of the government, not having enough dollars to pay for info. this is because it's for in earnings and reserves have been rapidly declining since 2019 huge debt repayment of ethan into a big chunk of available resources. the crisis has affected all sectors, including public transport. operator said they're struggling to survive from day to day. after that, mama, on the one hand there's no electricity. they cut power for 7 and a half hours. the diesel stocks i come up with half is given for power generation a lot. it's only half the stock that's used for everything else. after months of coping, people protesting yet and chill out notice colombo fishermen complain. they don't have fuel for their boats mid afternoon. my husband can't gotcha say there's no

diesel or hope those responsible struck by lightning in columbia or silent protests . enough is enough, says one bene, stop ruining my country, reads another month of skyrocketing prices and shortages of food, medicine, cooking gas and fuel have made sri lankan, frustrated and angry. to make matters worse, they have suffered through the worse pol got to be impose in more than 25 years. 7 and a half hour interruptions, a day, a causing chaos. among all segments of the population, sri lanka, public utilities regulated says it has been pushing to solve the power crisis. these, these had become a national issue to necessity. yeah. the attention has not been paid by the political hierarchy, been man now and the daughter dish. so we have been fighting in all of, with almost everyone to sort out this issue. increasing prices and shortages are

not unique to she lanka, but people here say they're leaders of aggravated the situation through years of corruption and mismanagement. minute fernandez, ojo 0, colombo was like us usable foreign currency reserves are plunged below $1000000000.00. now the rising cost of oil imports is shrinking, that even further leaving it vulnerable to a debt default. the tourism sector, a major foreign exchange, erna was battered by the east attacks of 2019. and of course the corona virus pandemic. and now 2 countries vital to shore lancaster, tourism market or at ball russia and ukraine had been the 1st and 3rd largest source of visitors this year of fail drive to become the world's 1st 100 percent organic farming nation hurt food security shall anchor was forced to import rice, the t croft, the nation's top export was devastated. show lankin, i wanted china, a major lender to restructure its debt and its negotiating

a $1000000000.00 relief package from china as geopolitical rival, india. let's talk all of this through now with the shall de mel in colombo, he's an economist and research director at verity research. he served as economic advisor to sal anchors, finance, ministry from 2017, to 20. 19 dash. a great to have you with us is shall anchor on the verge of defaulting on its debt. so sir lanka is facing a very challenge situation on. it's a foreign exchange on reserve, a position right now. so it's usable reserves that excluding the $1500000000.00 chinese, you ensemble amounted to just $734000000.00 at the end of february. that you know, that's in port coverage of around 2 and a half weeks. now in the month of february and march through longer had liabilities maturing, amounting to $1800000000.00. so the, the gap between usable reserves and maturity liabilities is,

is clearly betty betty. hi, you're not going to like us favor. now there was a deferment of $900000000.00 of su payment indicating union payment that was due to be paid earlier this week that deferred by 2 months. so that does provide a little bit of a levy for the next few weeks. but overall, the very challenging, challenging situation on its external external debt. and it's one of the reserves and the government says that it can manage this, this situation on its own without resorting to help from the i m f. is that a wise strategy? do you think so i think the most prudent option now is to enter into negotiations with its creditors. because due to restructuring, it's extended to restructure in a preemptive manner. and such a restructuring program would ideally be underpinned and supported by an i'm if agreement, an agreement that situation would be able to unlock some options of bridge bridge financing. that'll help to don car, to build up reserves in the, into the by,

by to goes through a restructuring process. now, even if some house we don't quite able to meet, it's maturing that liabilities by scraping together some swaps. so come to government transactions. is to doing so at the expense of critical inputs for the economy in both such as for cooking, gas and a number of other important commodities. as a result of beach citizens off to a degree of hardships. the really, the best balance from duncan economy perspective in the, in the long term, would be to preemptively restructure the external liability. but at issue that we've discussed many, many times on counting the cost. how much of this current crisis is due to the fact that so lanka is so indebted to china? so i would say that the, the current situation is not entirely because of liability for china. so if you look at the upcoming maturities over the next few years, typically around 20 percent of the maturity liabilities are laboratories that to,

to china. the bulk of the, the bulk of the life is actually arise out of long cars. borrowing from commercial markets, from financial markets, particularly just been bonds, indicated loan, and so on. so wife, that is a component of chinese detention is liabilities in this. in this question, i would not say that it is the predominant cause of the challenges we don't actually think right now. all right, what, what is the cause? we talked a few moments ago about the now scrapped policy to switch to 100 percent organic farming. that affected exports and, and food security. we talked about the t industry, the biggest export on suffering is, is there one single cause, or it's just showing in the wrong place or the long time economically at the moment . so the, the scrapping of can because satellites replacing organic fertilizer that you don't have evidence as yet to, to be able to, to be routed to the decline in, in p exports in january survey data conducted by data research does suggest that

farmers do expect significant decline in new, so there would be some impact from, from that policy as well. but we don't, because we are problem is the fact that it lost access to build equity markets around early 2020, just before the, the dependent, the pandemic it by losing access to the credit market. it's been not been able to raise capital to be able to refinance if maturing debt sort of had to pay to pay back that using it reserves and to be reserved, better is that windows down to the net. and that's really the crux of the problem. the 3 pieces important, which are like us tourism industry, taking such a big hit, 1st of all from the pandemic. and now, due to the war in ukraine, is there anything that the government can do to, to increase it's, it's, it's foreign currency reserves, you know, to earn currency that it desperately needs. yeah, so certainly the boy in the ukraine does have an impact on,

on to do it because it just recovering in the last few months around 25 percent of arrival in the last few months have been from either ukraine or russia. so the conflict that 30 does have an impact on, on the balance of payments as does of course, been on impacts seeing in go to commodity prices, particularly particularly oil, gas. we and number of other important products as well because we don't use the next 30. the current geopolitical challenges do not work into junk are feeling in terms of in terms of the current account that said, the government has taken some important positive steps in recent days. he floated that will be the the center back door to the dr. ruby a couple of days ago, and that's certainly a step in the right direction towards encouraging more influence to former banking channels that can build up of the positive. the central bank also recently raised policy interest rates by a 100 basis points last week. monitor board meeting again,

a positive in terms of demand management and towards building up reserves. so that off steps in that direction. that's a long way to go in terms of the fiscal typing further, the move on the monitor side as well. if that is underpinned by and i miss program and restructuring, i would think that is really to be for the, for so long to really sustainably build up the reserves and to be able to both needed to extend their treatment and provide the inputs that are required to sustain deep on m dash l, it's been really good to talk to you on county the cost money. thanks so much for being with us. thank you very much. and that's all show for this week. don't forget you can get in touch with us if you want to comment on anything that you've seen, you can tweak me. i'm at a finnegan on twitter. please use the hashtags ctc when you do or you can drop us a line counting the cost of al jazeera dot. that is our email address. that is, as always, plenty more for you online at al jazeera dot com slash ctc. that takes you straight to the page and there you'll find individual reports, links, even

a ta episodes for you to catch up. but that is it for this edition of counting the cost. i'm adrian finnegan for the whole team here though, how, thanks for being with us. the news on al jazeera, his next blue on the alpine planes are the straightest snowy mountains. a beach, a battle is taking place of a whither the country's wall horses are a national icon. all pharaoh piss one on one. he's on ill to 0. examining the headline, what is the situation there right now? it's worse than any kind of nightmare. if we have a good read, unflinching journalism, what is it telling us about india? it's telling us that we're going down a very maybe in that is owed sharing personal stories with a global audience. here i am meeting with people sharing the same struggles. sharon

seemed. stories explore and abundance of world talk programming on al jazeera. ah, hello, i am emily anglin, in dough. having the top stories on the al jazeera, several russian strikes have targeted ukraine's. capitol is a live pictures from cave where a resident your building is on fire. after being struck by shelling on tuesday morning, there is no word on casualties or injuries, so ukrainian authorities say more than 100. 60 private cars have left the saved city of mary a poem. it's the 1st civilian convoy to leave the areas and russian soldiers surrounded it 2 weeks ago.