is bon experts and bomb sniffing dogs. it's also training about 700 countries, security personnel, no matter the outcome on game day cutters. national team has already logged several entries in world cup history and become the embodiment of the football aspirations of this country and region. natasha game l g 0 o friday. we're going to have a special program following the world cup. draw as it happens, live in doha coverage is gonna begin at 15. 45, g m t ah, this is al jazeera, these are the top stories president joe biden is opening the tops and the u. s. strategic oil reserve to try to bring down rocketing prices. 1000000 barrels of oil a day will flood into domestic and international markets for up to 6 months.

russian president vladimir putin is demanding european countries pay for russian gas in rubles, all the contracts will be canceled. germany buys a lot of russian gas and says that's blackmail. ukraine's president says his country must prepare for a renewed russian offensive in the east. what him as zalinski warned that moscow may shift its focus to separatist held areas after suffering setbacks and it's offensive. near cave might be neutral, kiva. we continue pushing away occupiers in the north of keys in the turn he region . and in the sumi region, they realized themselves that they can sustain the intensity of combat that they held in the 1st half of march and done bass and mary paul and car keys directions. russian forces are amassing resources for powerful strikes. we will defend, we will do everything possible to stop the occupiers and clear our territory from the evil and senseless crimes rushing voices, a center of left exclusions own around the defunct to noble nuclear plant. according to the korean government, on 1st ukraine told the us nuclear watchdog,

the control of the plant had been hunted back to ukrainian personnel to know what was taken at the beginning of russians. invasion in february. 20th is president. the case said says elections won't be held within the next 3 months. that runs contrary to the countries constitution, saves dissolved the parliament that he suspended last year. it accused politicians of attempting a qu, i'm as a parliament in pakistan, have been debating emotion of no confidence in prime minister, even on con, a votes expected to take place on sunday. cons being pressured to resign after a partner in the coalition government switch sides. and only results from a vote by amazon employees in new york suggest most of them want to join a union. the 1st of the companies us side to unionized workers at an amazon warehouse in alabama, also voted, but they appear to have rejected forming a union. and those are the headlines coming up next and i'll just 0. it's the stream. goodbye. amid the ongoing ukraine, russia wound some neighboring countries in

a russian attack on their soil. do you take that as a serious possibility of, of rush or attack? my thing, there is serious possibility and absolute certainty is, would like to do its own ins deputy foreign minister, pamela gibbons, he talks challenges, era i f m. yeah. okay. welcome to the street. today we are focusing on sri lanka and the worst economic crisis. the country has been through in decades how regular people managing as prices go up and placing goods are really hard to find. this is a conversation that you are invited to as well on the chief. the comment section is live ready for your thoughts, your comments and being part of the discussion theme that came up nam may that, that my mugot might have not faced such hardship before the time out of the last year or 2, it has been very difficult to do i get paid a good salary,

but i no longer can manage with that gun when we get up in the morning. the prices have w. we're done. now we only get half of what our sellers could get us before this. lot of people, the fault is not with my job or the salary, i get it. the problem is with the rising price at the merger that end on the bank and bug a thought. again, joining the conversation to help us understand what an economic crises in sri lanka looks like today. we have a monopoly he, me, and hasha walk or 3 of you to the stream. now, please introduce yourself to out the audience. i am sure they know who you are, just remind them if it, for those to do, i've been in journalism for something like 30 years now right out of school and a little over half of that with 0. so i've been reporting on chill anchor for that time for the channel. so glad to have you. i'm broadly heaney. welcome to the stream. please introduce yourself to our international audience. i pleasure to be in conversation with you on the new fernando antoniette. lo and i haven't spoke on

zillow member representing the opposition yet to having, and hello hoshal. introduce yourself. drag global audience. i. this is hi, shabby silva. i'm a member of parliament representing the opposition. i was previously in government, a non cabinet minister of economic reform, blessedly here. i said, guess what i wanted to really get from you is what does an economic crisis niche look like? what does it feel like? what is the experience of that alone we spoke to cover? who just did a list of what it is like in sri lanka to day happened? listen me now and then come and meet me off the back of your thoughts and new experiences. teeth. we have food short a yes. you know gas shortage. yes. we have suicide here shortly. yes. we are short and we have you been short ages? so yeah, for the life is really bad and people out some of the people,

some of the families me know away without the means it needs this is robbie, i've been trying to be some consent. so some of these are the 45. these surprises have been rising as you heard that lists, but it's not just the fact that it's the prices that are rising. there are shortages, people essentially go to the shops, they can buy the powder. obviously the amount and the quantity of goods they can buy for a limited amount of money is getting less and less. and obviously salaries are pretty much as, as they have been. so people are finding, finding that they're buying power has reduced. they're also having issues of sort of thing, essential, good things like fuel cooking, gas and more recently medicines and particular essential food items. they very much difficult because your average families are having to spend last time in hughes.

certain families have complain that you know, the mothers in bonds, the fathers in another sometimes it's reality that we are finding, we've seen it over the recent weeks and it's making people very, very angry because sometimes not just is the fact that you know, things shooting up in price that sometimes even if you have the money and you spend hours and hours in use, you still get what you want me can you remember when they economic crises started to bite, where you spend a big chunk of your day queuing for goods. when can you say this is what it started? so this economy crisis, it was something that was visible and i would say 18 months back. it was borne by anybody to go by. is that true? lack of will be going into a crisis and that might lead to situation, but there might be that before, and the price of goods will rise and also be saw the government down presently

printing money, which actually led to these inflation and design watching that situation that we are currently in, so this is a situation, i wouldn't say something that shocked overnight, but it was coming and the government could have taken corrective measures, but sadly, it didn't happen and he'll be out today. unfortunately, the people are struggling to manage the lives of the day they are being spending on . he was struggling to feed decades. the 3 me all this morning, media to price it is as well as more time workers. everybody middle income to low income. every sick i would say has come to a standstill because the government has been unable to provide the b 6 for the functioning of the country. ha ha, it's interesting that he said 18 months ago, there was this prediction. could that knowledge have saved chill anchor from where

it is right now, or would you still be in exactly the same place? because, of course, as a cosy pandemic, 2 and a lot of the tories it, that was $1000.00. it was coming to. she'll anchor there, isn't that money there for the government to draw from russia? well, this could have been avoided. this need not have happened. in fact, i made a long speech as the opening speaker for the opposition. when the 2021 budget was presented in november of 2020 and i urge the government to seek the support of the i m f. because what we currently have is our toxic combination of a debt or hand and a liquidity crisis. so you're right. yes. we lost some, what are some dollars, but due to the mismanagement after currency and the remittances actually failed shock. people started sending money

through the black market. that created a discrepancy in the officially on the black market. then huh. that liquidity crisis caused a government to stop using that. he so see dad. now that he says have fallen door, almost absolutely nothing. so it is a mismanagement of the economy. yes, the panoramic played some role icon, denied that. but this certainly could have been avoided when you said, i'm just going to same analogy. i know we were working on this to try and get a voice from the collection come at to come and join us and. and we tried really hard because we wanted to have that voice in, it's really important conversation. we weren't able to do that. but just thinking about how the government, the clinician coming out, is handling this crisis. a thought you're saying this is mismanagement. what are

you seeing again, there are obviously a certain amount of challenges that the government has had to face. it's not something that hasn't been an easy thing, not just called the government here in chicago, but as a global phenomenon, you know, price rises, shortage is an essential good food. energy is being seen across the board for the government here. they have over the a sort of a double whammy. if we will make you have to remember that you like i had this devastating terrorist attack in 2019 almost 300 people were killed in a series of coordinated boma attacks on easter sunday 2019. and that in itself, does the 1st blow on the economy in terms of affecting in a major way tourism because for months on end, you know, people were taken back, they weren't sure what exactly is going on. and that's the deal quite

a serious blow. we were just beginning as an economy also to recover that's not to say the financial houses in order. there were sort of cracks and issues, but that seat of attack deal as it is low and the government had to deal with the consequences of that job. you know, maybe 10 months or so while things were beginning to fall, slowly into place. got racked with corporate as well. that is not to say that it is the kind of reason or the excuse that things are falling apart. gave deal a blow, but definitely in terms of the re, the manage things as power says of mismanage things that are quite a few people across the boards that feel that things could have been handled much better. the they could have actually worked with a much broader people, not just, you know, gone down there or sort of solutions. we start looking at the bigger picture so that a general feeling that things could have. all right, let me,

let me show you something here on my laptop. let me have a look at this. this is a community meal share that it's on my laptop. this is a tweet i want to share with you. and then with this tweak, goes alongside a comment that need because sent to us because she's seeing whether you decide this is government mismanagement, or covey, or loss of tourist stores. there are people in need, and she'll anchor right now, and she's trying to help them. i really want to get your take on what it is that the communities doing for themselves and the fact that they have to do for themselves. he's not take a festival community. i was initiated by myself and my friends and family to support the student is very difficult time and we understand that the economic price is injury law. many homes right now. so what we do is take walk meals into people's homes when they request it. even if they do not request, if we send out

a notification through certain community leaders and we ask them to allow us to support them during this time, the heaney go ahead. yeah. so there are many informal informing me there are a lot of support services that are happening in the country. like for example, if you take the informal a, there are certain initiatives taken by to organizations, different labs to support and not just buy food, but to assist in education in terms of that also in terms of covering their day to day expenses. so i would say from the government, but say there is no such is not data initiatives, but involvement sector. there are some initiatives that are being taken to assist. i'm just gonna go to ye, she because our audience had taken part in the conversation as well. hush, let me just put this one to you. i hear phil says, the new car is far seeing it, savings vanish, and purchasing power decline. because feeling a brain drain,

it could take some need for that. we're coming back on track your thoughts briefly . how shall act that is absolutely true, because out when i repeat depreciate by almost 40 percent. and if you look at the curb market, the black market has to proceed and far more than that. what it means is, the po savings have diminished. so sure that that is, that is what's going on. and even today i was coming out of a small cafe, a cup of coffee, and 2 young men came up to me and said, huh, you know, i'm 32 years old and i'm going to id work and i want to leave. what do you think? i should do and i hear this all the time and it's very sad. but i want to also

add something to me now said, and that is yes, the tourism dollars not flowing in did have an impact, but it was not really that good. this crisis. what trigger the crisis wasn't responsible? tax got that came before the pandemic, which caused a massive hole in the treasury of about one 3rd. that revenue that was lost and in order to fill. ready that whole, the central bank started printing money. and when people like us want the central bank, i just asked cuz i'm just in a plebeian. can you just print money? isn't that disastrous? it is absolutely disasters. this is what you land in a principal, a sofa, macroeconomics, about the central bank continued to see to the b. but look, and you know, this, you not cause inflation and,

and they have been that so much money just to give you a sense of how much am while, while the real economy for the last 2 years go by point one percent money supply. that is, all the money that is available in this economy has grown by 41 percent. so it is no surprise that prices are going up and when you say a prices it includes the price of you was dollars. so so therefore this has been a man made disaster and i wonder also add in. busy middle of. ringback pandemic the government decided one fine day overnight they were going to ban the importation of fertilizer. and that just was a death blow ah, do agriculture and, and what we're hearing is that with this of us in that ice producing areas harvest

has come down perhaps by $40.00 to $60.00. but i know if i may to think that, that the banning of fertilizer wasn't buffy on a whim. it was, they've wanted that to be, or garrick fat life for layla banning non organic fertilizer as i understand is that correct? yes, i'm in your car in the was there is no counting the one that has a fully organic agriculture sector. nothing. no. well right. so a lot of lot of people who know about this experts, the professors okay. all said door door. so i wasn't sure if put a spotlight on where you think the government is being deficient. i'm going to remind people that you are an opposition politician. so this is your job. in the meantime, me now i've just been looking on twitter algebra english, have a look here on my laptop. we have a developing story. please ensure lanka flying, tear gas and water cannons. dispos, huge crowds. protesting near the president's residence in colombo,

you have done reporting at protest and demonstrations. i'm just going to remind our audience, some of the stories that you found. this one in particular was a demonstration quite recently. let's take a look. another day and another valley with thousands of angry people taking to the streets, into lanka. they came from around the country, desperate to be heard without municipal ever to loc. grenada. people are facing hardships, even those who have money don't have goods to buy. children, students, parents, everyone is facing problems like the crowds carried banners that said 70 full years of good option. enough is enough. people are crying, patients are dying, and the government is lying. oh, the government, i said, father, the people have had enough and he did johnny. that the big one to make a deal choice on the new government that good up it is a so we have ongoing process and demonstrations of current protests outside the

president's palace. how is the government responding, min l, to all of this criticism? obviously, not very happy camper at this time because there's been a series of demonstrations, very large show of numbers if you like. and the one that you saw was affiliated to political groups that were one or 2 sort of massive scale protest i've seen in recent years. something like 35000 people, but one by one of the main opposition parties. in fact, that is part of the g b that we saw on the 15th of march. then the protest is just seen this week. thousands of pharma congregating in the north central sort of city of polo not, which is very much a, one of the back of the agricultural part of the country. and again, it comes back to that fertilize a band that you referred to earlier. the fact that literally overnight the

government brought in a ban on chemical fertilizer on we decide and pesticide. we thought as much as a, by your leave without discussing it, with farmers without, you know, testing the water, so to speak, to find out what people thought to look at, seizing it in. because that's what the go to roger election manifesto did talk about a green agriculture moving to, you know, held the grow it growing practices and things like that. so he did talk about 10 years. but having put that aside and bringing in this band overnight, really to farmers by surprise, they really struggle to find the proper fertilizer with decades. and they can, they had all of these chemical fertilize products through them and they got used to it. in fact, one of the bomb was we talked to at the valley the other day it said look, it's like a drug addict. you can. 5 to expect a drug, the just to go cold turkey overnight after, you know, he's been used to that much of projects in the system. it's just not going happen.

so this is something that really sort of affected and hit farmers and you see that angle when they come together because they've just sort of harvest the loss of that data i talked about in the center proven has harvested that crop. and the numbers that we're hearing, as partially referred to earlier as anything from of i've heard 40 percent passions that up to 60 percent. so that is evidence. even though we haven't heard the official final figures yet from the government and institutions that the harvest have fallen in a major way. and this is obviously getting directly to the livelihoods of thousands of people in those agricultural communities. now i just want to get some thoughts from you about present roger pac sir, because i'm going to play a little light of him talking about asking the i m f for help box. the whole policy economic policy was relying was we can do this alone. we're going to

get financing from not just from within the region, but for with in sri lanka that didn't work out. he's back tracking a little bit. now he's back tracking a lot. what do you make of the decisions that he's been making? and then i'm going to play his voice, and his approach that he's taking right now, lena, you start? yeah. so it was, is this government came into office. they've had this whole looking approach as opposed to, you know, having an outward looking approach because they had this one point to see that everything can be done within the country. even also in this was a managing the did crisis. so the government wasn't quite reluctant to go to the international assistance. and also we thought we've seen that was the, one of the main issues was for a long time, from time to time, the people to see changes from government to government. what is the changes? so when this particular president came into office, i mean they presented that manifesto, the policies that are brought forward was somewhat different to the previous

governments. so this, this particular change effect had the economy. now very large scale and how about the way they brought in those policies. they were not in a position to sustain in that meeting. 3 and that going to a good option mismanagement or together i would say has led to the economy crisis. and it is something that they could have avoided, but it is she or she, i'm planned and lack of strategy, lack of taking advice from a professional and not having the right people in the right place to advise. so i mean, the guy has always been a country which has a broad chad chad maintain much shade international relations would go to countries and not just speeding to certain nations, but the f one is he has a certain countries which also has not acted in favor i mean, if i, if i might put the president in the show because i'm but he wasn't able to join us

. all he spokespeople i was able to join is because this is how can use framing how he's going to tackle the economic issue. economic crises, inter lanka, have a listen, have a look. either mild, mccadney, a mule guard marker, i am well aware of the shortages of essential items and the increase in prices. i'm also aware of issue such as gas shortage is fuel shortages and power cuts. i am very sensitive to the many sufferings the people have had to experience over the past 2 months. i know that this situation will continue for reasons beyond our control that we make maximum possible efforts with regards to the situation that no job gunther morley or yesterday's discussion with the international monetary fund, was held for this purpose. we hope to find a way to pay off our annual loan installments, sovereign bonds, and so on. subsequent to my discussions with the i m f. i have decided to work with them after examining the advantages and the disadvantage inside the ha,

come of it. yeah. so on your chip, i mean i seen your comment since you thank you for your comments. you're asking. so what do we do about this? i'm really glad that you asked that question. i'm going to go to the tarza, jeff and he, he spoke to us just a little bit earlier with a whole list of what sri lanka should be doing next. here, yes, we have to start restructuring. our unsustainable extend it. he had to significantly reduce the energy subsidies that only linked to cdn. reduce is talking with shortly. group households. we have to lead price. our policy just used to be more gross market street. we have to do certain kind of draws on foreign exchange immersion. that is a mortgage and we need to get some announcements about crystal or lucy goose, texas, which was one of the key lizards that these crisis texts. and most importantly,

urgently need an idea of gram i should thank you so much for sharing your take on what is happening with the economic crisis in sri lanka, lini. we really appreciate you me now. i actually have 30 seconds left in that last 30 seconds. what do you think would happen next? level of anger that you see on the streets is something that by powerful we saw it at the ng, the update that you talked about, that developing story. hundreds of people gathering outside the president's house only for frustration. so it's going to get worse, i believe if we can get better where we're going. falling your reporting on line and on al jazeera. thank you so much, man. now la, heaney, hasha and all the comments on youtube. appreciate it. i see you next time. take everybody ah,

the latest news, as it breaks the russians were met with fierce ukrainian resistance to punish her, keeps the rif county historical par with detailed coverage as the u. s. and other countries imposed sanctions on moscow with russia has been offering oil and other commodities to india and other impulses from around the world to lyrical up position needs 87 both and for that they need members of your own political party to turn against them. witness fe with his bravery. witness breeder, witness. slavery, witness people, witness power, witness and lifetime. witness in our witness who witnessed bees. witness prejudice . witness. peace, witness. love. witness. ball. witness. the world. witness. next door.

witness life witness. to sarah. man, in the early hours of the morning, these palestinian families are being forced to leave their homes and belongings. these already military sometimes uses this area in the north of the occupied west bank as a training ground. exclusions like these often break the piece here. i feel for the children they get scared the bombing. i tried to calm them down there, but we're scared to the israeli army tool that just either that it takes measures to protect civilians during back the sizes. what is really, officers previously said that trainings are used to push palestinians out 48 cavities once lived in this village called zeek. now that are only 20 people here, say they have nowhere else to go. so they have to stay out until they're allowed to

return to their home after midnight. and the military drill will continue for 3 days, which means they'll have to go through this again twice this week. ah . ready the tax open on us fuel reserves president joe biden orders the biggest release from secure oil stores and says, there should be more drilling ah robinson. this is the rely from doha. also coming off, pay in rubles all will shut off the gas. russia gives the west an energy ultimatum analogy as it is on the front lines in the battle for the ukrainian city of called cave.