why? oh, it's because ukrainian, they have blue eyes, they have white skin and you sit there and go, ha, how come we are so miserly? in our capacity to care about refugees, if they're yemeni, if they're patient, if they're asking the festival of music and entertainment, but also a forum for the world's biggest problems. rob reynolds al jazeera austin, texas. ah, it's got a round up now about top stories on a russian strike on the plains city of murray. you, paul, as destroyed a theatre where hundreds were sheltering. the number of casualties is not yet known . earlier russian rockets had a convoy flame, the city, enjoying 5 people. the u. s embassy and keith says russian forces have shot at 10 ukrainians as they were queuing for bread inch near the international court of

justice has all of russia to immediately cease its military operation. and you claim president joe biden has announced the us will give you crane $800000000.00 worth of military hardware bite and also called let me put in a war criminal. it comes off the ukraine's president for a de ms. lansky made an impassioned plea to american politicians to do more to protect his country. friends, americans, in your great history, you have pages that allow you to understand ukrainians. now we need you right now. remember, pearl harbor that terrible morning of december 7th. 1941. when your skies turned black from plains attacking you, just remember it. remember september, the 11th that terrible day in 2001, when evil tried to turn your cities into battlefields, innocent people were attacked on the air. no one expected it and you could not stop it. our country is experiencing the same every day every night for 3 weeks now. among the 3000000 ukrainians have now fled the fighting with tens of thousands more

crossing into eastern european countries. every day. romania is now housing more than 400000 of them being met by thousands of volunteers. poland has taken the most refugees, almost 2000000. 2 british iranians are on their way back to the u. k. from iran, off the years in detention as it means that already radcliffe took this photo on the flight home. she was convicted in 2016, a plotting to overthrow iran government, but she's always denied this magnitude 7.3. earthquake has struck off to pans eastern fukushima coast time and knocked out power. 2000000 people. a su nami advisory was issued, but has since been lifted, the company working to decommission, the fukushima plant says check the site and found no abnormalities. those are the headlines. counting cost is next. o mon has a rich history, but also plays an important role in the gulf region to day out there well discovers

its empires stretched from the arabian peninsula to east africa. built a great sea power. the problem that existed indigo was piracy, tribes lose rebellion, empire, and colonization, oman, history, power and influence on al jazeera. ah, [000:00:00;00] i hello, i'm adrian finnegan. this is counting the coastal al jazeera. you'll look at the world of business and economics this week, the u. s. and u. k. band, 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 aspects 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 death. ah, it is the world's largest exporter of natural gas and the 2nd largest oil exporter energy is russia's 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. yep. now

the move will wasn't inflation and push up fuel prices at washington scrambling to find alternative suppliers. al jazeera, priyanka groups are reports a major escalation of use economic sanctions against russia, 4th invasion of ukraine. you, especially joe biden, is going after president vladimir potent mos lucrative industry. we're banning all in ports of russian oil and gas in energy. that means russian oil no longer be accessible, u. s. porch and american people will 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 physician will mean difficult compromises. they'll have to be additional use of nucular, 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 quake have 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 to you 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? the u. s. u to something like 8 percent of russian oil. is that correct? yeah, that's, that's right. i mean, i think you ought to write it as a logic symbolic moves. and, you know, obviously 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 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, but its infrastructure isn't isn't in any fit shape of the mother. 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 markets and certainly given the situation we were in there is an impetus now to try to bring those to countries back into the global oil market. discussions are ongoing. as you say, i think venezuela's or 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 u. a now as well. okay. and you talk about the europe looking to to when itself, off of frush and 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? that 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. that the 3 major sort of alan g 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 ellen, g imports at which, which roughly equates out about 60 to 70 percent increase in imports of l n. j. i think that's highly optimistic given given current export capacities and also a you 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 western markets is most access us. it was only, is access to to europe is 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 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, to china, building your pipeline infrastructure to supply gas from, 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 russian not having many other customers, china will, will be able to, to leverage that position to negotiate themselves. a better deal, so yeah, in some way i think it rushes, the price that they can achieve for their in jack sports will, will undoubtably go down. toby, it's been great to talk to you on counting the cost many. thanks again 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 hire 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 sport, a patch of clear skies after the horrible time they've been through with the pandemic here we have more turbulence caused by higher oil prices. and 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 what she can say no could be manage 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 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 gonna 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 let's 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 is 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 or something like $500.00 aircraft, according to our databases that are least into russian entities from international leasing companies. and those effectively, the lease is be terminated by the 28th of march. so that means that any aircraft that sent flying outside can be impacted. and also the 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 the 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 at 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 alliance 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 many of the smaller airlines. all those running on on very tight operational budgets with this continuing agony now with their space restrictions around russia with the increasing fuel prices. do you think that we'd like to see other airlines going on? but 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 a lot of 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 manella, 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 are in short supply that of id, that it all

a similar day. i haven't eaten from the morning and i can't even go drink some water on, i would lose my place otherwise made it have only me that nothing after 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 sold. the shortages are a result of the government, not having enough dollars to pay for info. this is because it's foreign. earnings and reserves have been rapidly declining since 2019 huge debt repayments have eaten 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 note of colombo fishermen,

complaint they don't have fuel for their boats need asking you about. my husband can't gotcha say there's no diesel or hope those responsible struck by lightning in colombo. 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 that. how a crisis these, these had become a national issue. thought necessary. yeah. the attention has not been paid by the political hierarchy then than now. and the other 2 reduced, so we have been fighting in all of,

with almost everyone to sort out this issue. increasing prices and shortages are not unique to shanker but people here say their 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 to attacks of 2019. and of course the corona virus pandemic. and now 2 countries vital to shall, anchors tourism market are at war. 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. sure, 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, the mel in colombo. he's an economist and research director at verity research. he served as economic advisor to sal, anker's, finance, ministry from 2017 to 20. 19 dash are great to have you with us is, shall anchor on the verge of defaulting on its debt. so sir langa is facing a very challenged situation on the foreign exchange and reserve for the 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, around 2 and a half weeks. now in the month of february and march silica 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 issue creating 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 to face the very challenging, challenging situation on its external external debt and it's for the reserves and the government says that it can manage this, this situation on its own without resorting to help from the map is not a wise strategy. do you think so i think the most prudent option now is to enter into negotiations with it. but it's pretty does. 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 and i am if agreement and i'm of agreement, that situation would be able to unlock some options of big bridge financing that

helps to build up reserves in the, into the by goes through a debt restructuring process. now even if somehow we don't case able to meet, it's maturing that liabilities by scraping together some swap. so come to government transactions. is to doing so at the expense of critical inputs for the economy in both such as for cooking guy and a number of other important commodities. as a result of beach citizens after a degree of hardships are really the best balance from dunker konami perspective. in the, in the long term would be to preemptively restructure 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 maturing liabilities our laboratories to, to china. the bulk of the, the bulk of the life is actually arise out of cars borrowing from commercial markets, from financial markets, particularly ban bonds indicated lo and so on. so wife, that is a component of chinese detention is liability. 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 was, 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 that the t industry, the biggest export on suffering is, is that 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 chemicals. so like replacing the footlights that don't have evidence 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'll problem is the fact that it lost access to dual credit markets around early 2020, just before the, the, the panoramic dependent kit by losing access to the credit market. it's been not been able to raise capital to be able to refinance if maturing debt, so it had to pay to pay back that using it reserves and to be reserved about that. is that windows down to the next level. 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 volume the ukraine does have an impact on, on to do it. and it was 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 overall balance of payments as does of course, been off on impacts seeing in global commodity prices, particularly, particularly oil gas. we are a number of other important products as well because we don't use the net important to 30. the current geopolitical challenges do not work into junk, are feeling in terms of in terms of current account. that said, the government has taken some important positive steps in recent days. it floated, there will be the center back door to the street. i'm going to be 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's march 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 facilitating 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 me for the, for so long to really sustainably build up the reserves and to be able to both meet extended day treatments and provide the inputs that are required to sustain, define 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 don't. that is our email address. that is, as always, plenty more few online at al jazeera dot com slash ctc. that takes you straight to

the page, and then you'll find individual reports, links, even a time episodes for you to catch up on. but that is it for this edition of counting the cost. i'm adrian finnegan for the whole team here in bo. how, thanks for being with us. the news on al jazeera, his next ah. from the front lines alzheimer's correspondence continued to report every angle of the war in ukraine. we've just heard shilling in the distance and machine gun far in the forest. there is a humanitarian crisis erupting on multiple front rad rockets landed just a few meters from our convoy swimming up was. this has been all over the need for a region, but he tries st. totally destroyed along the road we came in on. there was still clearly an active battlefield day with out there for the latest development cutter, one of the fastest growing nations in the wanting,

cato needed to oakland and development school international shipping company to become a p middle eastern for trade and wanting skillfully, mcdonald 3 key areas of development, who filling up from it, so connecting the world, connecting the future. ronnie, cato cutters, gateway to whoa trade. ah, russia is accused of destroying a theatre in the cranial city of matter. you poll. hundreds were sheltering in the building. ah, i'm hasn't seeka, this is al jazeera alive from doll halls coming up,