verbally has long been seen as linking russia to the outside world. the departure of smear nova and others bring spect memories of the cold war and fears that russia would be increasingly isolated. after western governments impose sanctions on russia, the dutch national belly decided to stop its collaboration with state subsidized companies like the marine sky belly in st. petersburg valley is not completely removed from politics and has never been. art and politics do exist together in the same world. i'm so we also have to take a stand, i feel like we're going back in time. and that's a terribly sad thing because there has always been cultural restraint. ah, well, the exchange has boss will. now, russia continues to be present in small movers. performance is just a few weeks after she left her country to start. if i'm under the belly 1st grade class in 1898 in st. petersburg. ah, of course it's my,

it's my conscience. i'm russian. but i prefer not, not to day for the country which behave in this way, but people life have kind of fear. for example, i think my colleagues and in is the time when everyone needs to yet still own the choice to make their own choice. and i made mine smith, nova says by denouncing the war. she risk along prism term. a dutch already applauded her, not only from merkel film with fulton his then against the war. thank you. and so then, ah,

this is al jazeera and these are the top stories, russia and ukraine, se 20 civilians have been evacuated from the as of sol steelworks and mario paul, including women and children. there are as many as 2000 people living in the network of tunnels and bunkers. ukrainian soldiers are fighting village by village in the countries east to hold off russian forces. but western intelligence suggests russian troops are only making minor advances and the offensive is days behind schedule. acute bonding is but i will share the occupy as the gathering additional forces for new attacks against our military and the east of the country. now they brought reinforcements to the hockey region, trying to increase pressure on the don bass level. they've lost more than 23000 soldiers in the battles of the senseless war for russia, but they do not stop you. how masses leader in garza has warned of heavy rocket fire if there's just one more israeli incursion at the end of some last compound in occupied east jerusalem. yes, in war said israeli forces deliberately for both worshippers at the site. they

don't want him open in the much the outflow. if we fulter the holy side will be lost and we will be remembered shame throughout history. our resistance factions have always been the backbone of our struggle against the israeli occupation. and therefore, if thou, holy side is desecrated again, our response will be harsh. and in the 1st wave of attacks, $1111.00 rockets are set to be fired. israel says is arrested the suspected killers of his really security guard at an illegal settlement in the occupied west bank on friday. israeli army video shows them in being detained in a palestinian town south of nablus. those are the headlines. the news continues here on al jazeera, after counting the cost in the vietnam war, the u. s. army used to heidi talks to code the side with catastrophic consequences . agent orange was the most destructive instrument chemical warfare

a decade later. the same happened in the us state of oregon. these helicopters flying over the ridge, bringing something and they didn't even see the kid. but 2 women are still fighting for justice against some of the most powerful forces in the world. the people versus agent orange on out of their own. i hello there, i'm kimbell. this is counting the call. so on al jazeera, your look at the world of business and economics this week. he's a prolific tweet, hip and cielo mosque, who sent, who come towards his owner and a $44000000000.00 deal. so what will the world's richest man gain and how is the influential platform like this change? although this week, mountains of debt and the world's poorest nations, i m f and world bank warn many countries are at risk of distress. they're calling for urgent action. so who should foot? the bill?

upholds dwindling foreign currency reserves. the government limits imports and turns to citizens abroad to shore up it's cash, stock pile. is the himalayan nation heading foreign economic crisis. ah, it's been a volatile deal hands if it goes through. it would be one of the largest leveraged buyouts on record tis that in space x e o. eli mosque has agreed to acquire twitter for $44000000000.00. i could potentially add a new jobs. his resume in new age media baron, given millions of uses, rely on twitter for their news. and they might get some of the platforms, content restrictions, relaxed mosques, as he wants to promote free speech. but what does that mean in practice? as well as on the reports from new york, the deal is done the month long saga of who will own twitter appears over in one of the largest and most unusual tech acquisitions ever. the board of directors and

twitter unanimously agreed to sell the social media company to even musk for $44000000000.00. up until the deal was announced, there was doubt on wall street. that musk could cobble together the financing needed, but he did. must help pay for the deal with $25500000000.00 in debt financing by a group of banks lead by morgan stanley. in a press release announcing the deal must talked about improving the platform by getting rid of automated spam accounts and making its algorithms open to the public and authenticating all users. but for musk buying twitter is about free speech, or at least his version of it potentially ending twitters current content, moderation, or stopping the platforming of users to break the rules you on mosque is not buying twitter or financial reasons, although he thinks he can make some money on it,

he's buying it for ideological reasons and i think that's the really important part and all this. and that's ultimately what's scary with musk in control. they fear a return to the unruly spread of disinformation on the platform. so as today, a good day or bad day for twitter users, that is probably the most important question here. and i think it's also the question that's going to be hardest to answer. i think that if he does a lot of the work that has been done trying to protect against sort of normative lee, bad speech such as this information and especially he's speech that's going to be a bad day for twitter. but you know, there's a chance that he takes over and doesn't sort of have quite a sweeping of a reform agenda. as he said, he's put forth in over the last couple it sent it to mulch you. it's month for twitter. the saw must take a 9 percent stake in the company, making him its largest shareholder. he was then offered

a seat on the board of directors, only to have it abruptly revoked, followed by his cash offer to buy the entire company, all within the last few weeks. ultimately, e lawn must got what he wanted to not only be a twitter user, but to also be its owner. gabe rosato al jazeera new york. investors have long been concerned about the company's growth. the number suggests that twitter is hard a the most successful social media platform in the marketplace. the company ended 2021 with a $5000000000.00 revenue fraction of the figures recorded by other platforms, facebook's core app, and nearly $70000000.00 in advertising revenue. more than 15 times the amount twitter earned in the same period last year. twitter is not the biggest social platform either and as more than 217000000 davy uses, compared with billions for facebook and instagram. well, there have been different reactions to the deal from politicians while the white

house said it's concerned about the power of large social media platforms. some republicans welcomed it as an encouraging day for freedom of speech. to discuss all of that now i am joined to by daniel, i'm from new york. daniel is the managing director and senior equity research analyst at web bush security. thank you for your time. i you surprised by this deal, then known in a 1000000 years come in 2022 would think that you are in moscow and twitter. so with that said, on twitter it is vulnerable. i mean, the company's been under performing social media for the last decade and must, can knew that there was an opportunity in the and also it was a game of thrones to board and look for another bidder. a white knight couldn't find it, must be called his financing bridges. person the world they had to down deal got done. so, you know, look, i think for mosque the easy part. he was playing chassis,

the board was playing checkers. so that was the easy part. the hard parts can be fixing twitter, which is what i view as almost every like up to a battle that's been a lot of touring and falling to get to this point. it was, you know, is it almost going to join the board? no, he's not. he wants to buy it out that going to put for this poison pill plan that didn't happen. why do you think it is that the board ended up accepting the steel? well, this is, this is a game. a game of thrones, right? and in terms of how it all played out, i mean, ultimately, i mean must surprise the board with the 9 percent the. they tried to invite them on thinking musk is just going to eat cheese and crackers in the corner and approving board measures. we all know that's not much, so one must decided not to join the board. that's where this became hostile. now, of course the board did a poison pill and actually gave them time to try to find a 2nd bidder. but mosques, price for twitter. there's no one in the universe that would match that. so that

continued to play out. and ultimately their options started to diminish and they were at a point where they had to accept the bid for mosque. and that's why we are where we are, because they were really no other white knights. last, because this isn't about money, he's described in self as a free speech absolutist. how do you think he's going to change twitter? he's talked about obviously making the algorithm open source. beyond that, what sort of changes do you think we're going to see? it will likely goes your subscription model, you know, probably per month in terms of what it's paid in terms of their freedom of speech issue. look at the buyer storms issue, you know, i mean how, you know, ultimately do you make sure it's not accessible, which has become over the years, and then how do you monetize your memory? he's spending 20 percent of his network. so saying famous speech is one thing and he just basically took

a decent piece of the test. so shares in trade that for twitter. and i think now, i mean they're going to have to ok, subscription model, you know, west constriction in terms what you could say. but does that ultimately improve from man? is asian perspective because deeper losing out the tick tock. instagram, facebook in the social media arms race, which continues to believe that's why, you know, in terms of musk trading in his task for twitter shares that just puts more pressure on castle stock and you've seen that play out. yeah, i mean, yeah, he said this is, i guess it's about his ideals and his thoughts on free speech. there are concerns in some court is that this could just kind of inflame misinformation that we're going to see even more misinformation that as you put it, it's got to become even more of a of assess it. do you think that's going to happen? what department twitter is that we could talk about twitter can trump to all the

other controversies, but yet there are the 3rd tier player in social media. she never hear tick, tock or instagram, yet knew the amount of users or 10 acts. and i think that's the problem is that, you know, the, the balancing act to make sure twitter is and go down the path that's gonna be difficult. then how do you do it? that's why continues to be, this is a major head scratcher for must to go in, in terms of going after twitter. it's a different animal than paid pal tassel space ex, his obviously just massive, massive historic success stories. and i think that's the problem going forward. the other issue is that it's political blow back, not just in the u. s, but just globally on both sides of the aisle. and now could then have an impact on tasa speech sex. and that's really been the concern, especially for a company like hassan space, or where must is the hearts and lungs of those companies. do you think that

regulate his could step in and stop the deal or how do you think twitter will react to regulations in general? well, i think from an anti trust perspective, it will get black because there's really no anti trust issues. i do think there will be twists and turns both in brussels as well as the beltway, you know, probably a lot of sort of regulatory scrutiny, because it's such an important platform in terms of global reach. but it, but if you will get twitter stock right now, i still think there's will call 10 to 15 percent uncertainty in terms of what was read speaking in that that the ultimate does not get done. what must the breakup fee be? great. he decides to walkway $2000000000.00. that's pretty small relative to a deal of this size. so it's just, you know, watch out or not just the regulatory, but some of the other issues that could get in the way here. and as we all know, must 24 hours could change tune as you say,

twitter has not performed in the way that the other big social networks have. why is that, and do you think a lot mosque could bring? i guess the last factor to twitter and make it profitable to that point. he pow paso space x ray. i mean, we're talking sherman biggest success stories to be the conundrum for mosque because he just spent 44000000000 and that's a walk spent in terms of pushing free speech. especially when it comes to a twitter platform where the news years said they've done. you know, especially as we've seen over the last years i'm so thank you very much for your time. we'll live there from new york den. and as this year, government, debts and low income countries are expected to exceed 50 percent of gross domestic product. up for less than 44 percent and 2019. before the pandemic started, almost 60 percent of all low income countries are in or near debt distress, which means a to restructure. there weren't risk owed by the 73,

highly indebted poor nations jumped to 18 percent in 2020 from 2 percent. 2006, poor nations will pay china and its land is almost 14000000000 dollars this year in debt servicing costs. while the private sector lending rose to 11 percent from 3 percent. and the combined share campaign is a calling for debt payments of developing countries to be dropped this year. almost 50 countries must resume paying back after a t 20 initiative which provided less than 30 for it so far and progress on restructuring. the debts has been slow, but greg swenson joins us now from london. greg is the founding partner at merchant bank brig. mcaden. thank you very much your time. so a huge build up of debt, a credit crunch and, and borrowing cost the rising. how bad is the debt crisis going to guess? i think it will get to some degree to corporate, but more importantly from the consumer and corporate balance sheets, including banks to the sovereigns to government debt. so this is answer. they're

just piling on more debt. i think just refinancing is a mistake because it doesn't solve the problem. it's just extending the obligation . and if anything, adding more countries who can't just print money from their central banks like like especially the u. s. but also many of the western central banks have, you know, they will take the money if offered and $1.00 of the, one of the results of money printing over the last decade of quantitative easing and 0 interest rate. any type of yield. and the developing countries are sometimes foolish to take the money and fall into a debt trap. it's really, you know, i think both borrower and lender are to blame. and this is what happens when there's too much money to chasing to few asset. there are some debt relief mechanisms. how effective do you think may have been? well, in many cases, they're very effective. kim, and especially in the near term. you know, some of these developing countries are just running through

a near term challenge structural defects with their economies. that was just a short term problem brought upon, you know, created by the coded crisis in many, the western governments. shutting, the type of restructurings in the near term are, are very important to the developing countries and important to the lenders who need to restructure work out these loans. but i think in the long term, there has to be a shift from the the, the aid and sovereign debt model to more of a long term investment model. that means private capital and to the global development, financial institutions investing in infrastructure and critical imports. for these countries, so it's not just loans and aid that need to be rework. it's long term impact, an opportunity from the lenders from london. greg swenson. thank you. thanks. can nepal has been struggling with a lot of tourists. a fall, ramirez is an to trade deficit,

but while visit is all saudi and could even run out a less than 7 months or not, the number reports now on how the government is trying to sure off. stockpiles of cash in this bustling market in downtown got my do its business of usual, but experts warn behind or be activity. an economic crisis is looming. that's particularly high. but as ballooning imports and high oil prices depleted foreign currency reserves exports will in the country could be headed towards an economic crisis. if the government doesn't step up in time, and there are other pressures i'm going to say to guy, good man, there's been a hike and oil prices, a leader of petrol, that cost around $100.00 rupees. now costs $160.00 rupees. nepal central bank has taken action to manage import and increased foreign exchange reserves. that's some kind of the challenge in the economy, particularly because of the import of some of the items. for example, the vehicles and the petroleum products, which are

a large portion of the board and nipple. so how we can manage that? that's one of the issues that is struggling in the present context. reducing video import cars and heavy duty equipment to nepal. she says it's important for businesses to work with the government, the central bank and business community. we being all completely him import oriented economy. we have a huge trade in balance because we have nothing being exported from here or at least a little being exported from here. so every small change in the world on the globe impacts. and that is why we have these, you know, these spanish situations every now and then as an absorbed economic shock, experts say it needs to act fast to avoid a full blown crisis from coming through, i'm joined now by base wash cock chant, the executive director of the new base institute for integrated development studies

. thank you very much for joining us. so, let's start with putting it simply is nicole on cost for economic crisis. not at all. no year in economic crisis in the pile. we are feeling some pressure on next to not to balance, but it doesn't mean that we're facing in economic crisis. no ball is running out of of foreign currency reserves though those reserve fell by more than 16 percent just in the past few months. why is that and how low are they against the countries debt? what happened was asked to call beat, to economy activities, quickly recovered the one bank credit and then import. so this led to some our activity, you know balances. so our problem is on the thompson. unlike insulin car,

where the problem is more on the extra non dead hours is more on the thompson trade because we have been facing a very large deficit for last 5 years on our, our current account deficit, it's growing every year. so that's where some measures have to be done to check that the negative consequences, that's all about remitted remittances. they constitute nearly a 3rd of benevolence economy. the government says if 100000 inevitable nationals living abroad each deposited $10000.00 into netflix banks that could help overcome the crisis. i mean, how realistic is that? actually in that sense is our revenue turns as the bus and does need to be has come down to at 22 percent or so from the highs of 26 percent is back. but that certainly significant revenue for the,

for the country so. so that is majors that government wants to implement the new, you know, the made just one of the new major taken by the government is to tap the savings of it by the dads leaving in advance countries. and you know, you know, the name of the banking institutions have started getting a very attractive interest rate worked in dollar deposit as well as local currency dep legit. so that has started objecting on the dashboard in advance countries and that is m all many just that i would like to take in future, but that don't have at least in the short term, that's going to have us to have a better cover for our invoice yeah, let's talk about that. the reserves,

as you said, less enough for less than 7 months. so how is the limit on non essential import? how is that going to help? how much is that going to help the government from that ball has introduced measures to ban 10 items of import and few months back that the central bank has tightened. the credit for import and this together have started making some impacts in tom stuff in bullets, but all there always are room in the private sector. the import us to find the ways to import goods. but i think this is one of the major images that government has to take because immediately there's no other ways rather than to put a restriction on the bullets. because neither the emitted man just as well

government can take for in the long run, we need to initiate lots of structural reforms to address this issue, but immediate immediate towns. i think putting restrictions on important use the one the way that the government can do. all right, thank you very much for your time. i got home there from catherine. thank you very much. and that is also for this week. get in touch with us by tweeting me at kim vanelle and do use the hash tag a j t t c. when you do, or you can drop us an e mail counting the cost on their dot net is our address is more for you online. out there or dot com slash ctc, that will take you straight to our page, which has individual report links and entire episode for you to catch up on that said for this edition of counting the call to i'm kim vanelle and the whole team here and they'll help, thanks for joining us. can use on al jazeera is next ah ah,

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a ceasefire allows around 20 people, including children to escape a steel works in mario paul besieged by russian forces. as fighting continues in eastern new crayton, were very close to the village of battle. ring covert, which is south of museum, represents english rule flexibly a new front. ah, i'm.