the fact that it is sequestered means that they feel its ill got them. in 2019, the philippines anti graft court, ruled that close to $900.00 mark was on artworks amounting to more than $24000000.00. 14 using stolen funds. the paintings on display here are just a fraction of what is believed to be an extensive collection held by the marcus's, some valuable pieces of an ocean. some are under litigation and others still missing. what are the more mysterious paintings this picasso, which the government had supposedly found in 2014 but which made an appearance more recently in the film, the kingmaker. many of the galleries that she bought, paintings from told her that they were not his only sally, a painting by master, but may be a replica of that painting. but she kept buying the. ready anyway, because it wasn't her money. despite this, the presidential commission on good government which is test would investigating

the marcus's unexplained wealth, had been bent on recovering all the paintings. earlier this month, however, a bill seeking to abolish the agency was filed in congress. it talks about the p. c . did you not having one cases, when, in fact, one of the biggest victories of the pc gaming to house and p when that's going to be in supreme court, ruled the swiss back accounts of the marco spouses, 6 $180000000.00 were stolen. however, president has not openly supported efforts to dissolve the commission was, but he continues to defend his father's legacy when we are rejecting in a recent interview, a high court ruling that his family all the government, billions of dollars in his state taxes in as i've been seen as a point below al jazeera manila. how many there? ah, i'm, let's take you through some of the headlines here. now just are now more than 700

people across russia have been detained after protests against the kremlin mobilization of military reservists for the use of crime down on demonstrators opposing the army call. ups. voting is continuing in referendums in easton, ukraine, seen as part of moscow's pushed to an axe for regions their armed men are reported to have gone door to door to get people to vote russian foreign minister. so gay lavish defended the referendums at the un general assembly, the syrian bomber, bro woodson, the rif friends which are being conducted based on decisions by local administrations, florida through the conditions of torture, friendships have been published for you can following the referendum sealed russia, of course, the respect expression of the role of those people who, who for many long years have been suffering abuses of immunity regime. these choose, the iranian president says protests against the government must be confronted decisively. there have been widespread demonstrations after the death of

a 22 year old woman in custody last week. masa, i mean, he was detained by the so called morality police for allegedly violating had scarf rawls dozens of died in the unrest. italians are due to start voting in a general election and the coming owls pinion. polls suggest a right wing coalition, lead by georgia, maloney will win those he headlines. the news continues after count the truck or region of paraguay, one of south america stuff it we follow to men who seem to thrive on is challenging . a veteran truck driver answers every course, whatever the web to provide for his growing family. and the cowboy who enjoys his rough, lonely life briskin it apparently on al jazeera. ah,

hello, i'm adrian said again. this is counting the cost on al jazeera, your wiki, look at the world of business and economics. this week, an economic meltdown of the fries on cash withdrawals, desperate lebanese depositors holding up that own banks to get access to their life savings. so what's the way out of the financial crisis? also this week, china is owed almost 40 percent of poor countries debt payments this year and is on the pressure to help strained economies overhaul that credit buttons. so what can beijing do? plus droughts, threatening zimbabwe is crops embracing fears of a food insecurity and bumpy, and farmers a going back to old falling techniques to cope with extreme weather conditions.

ah, the world bank says that lebanon's economic crisis may be one of the free worst in mountain time, said it's left 1810 people, paw. many lebanese people can't afford basic necessities. of those who have life savings in banks can't access them. withdrawals have been limited since the financial meltdown began in 2019. now desperate deposit is a robbing banks across the cash strapped country to get hold of their own money. so, how did lebanon get to this point? well, successive lebanese governments, which are accused of corruption and mismanagement, racked up huge debts in 2019, it became clear that the state had no capacity to finance its debts, including the countries, commercial banks. lebanon's financial system is estimated to have lost more than $70000000000.00. and bank say they don't have enough dollars to pay depositors. they've imposed informal capital controls and of offered savers with us dollar

accounts, lebanese lira to withdraw their money instead. but the local currency has lost around 95 percent of its value since the crisis started. and the countries g. d p plunged more than 20000000000 dollars last year. the government card for basic services with long hours of electricity blackouts and medicine shortages. well, we've met one depositor to try to retrieve his cash by force. here's what he had to say. and i say the spanish fan, my name is the some shake. hussein and i have $210000.00 in my account. it's my money that i own from work and from selling my apartment and my parents house for what they must. and my dad has a serious medical condition and i needed money. i went to the bank manager and he promised to help me once the bank got cash, but to me and a half month passed, and he still didn't get any money on that. i'll be in the lo fi. i went to the bank

and asked if it was available and the manager said no, i went to my car to get the gun and fuel. i entered the bank and locked the door and demanded all of my deposits. i poured fuel every time you found it there. i told the employees not to get involved and no one would get hurt. hello, methodical. 3 negotiators representing the government arrived and called in thought . initially they wanted to give me $10000.00 in dallas. later they offered 16000 again. i refuse of let this route and again it was around 5 or 6 pm when they offered me $13000.00. they then gave me $55000.00 in cash, which i got, and they promised me $400.00 a day and said i would not be detained. so long. i agreed, even though i knew they were like, i surrendered, but they detained me for 5 days because the bank filed charges against me. and i

never received a $400.00 payment to have. my life has been destroyed since the local currency devalued. and i lost my job. then i won't rest until i get my money bag was the highest on wall. it is a life or death choice. the interior minister should erase those who took our money, not us. i will exercise my rights any way i can, even if it involves blood. i will never give up a while to discuss. all of this were joint now from bay route by sunday. i tele, sunday is the founding director of the pay route based independent think tank the policy initiative. good to have you with us. sammy, the banking association, the in lebanon, says that banks are going to remain shots indefinitely following this series of hold up. some, it does closing banks make the situation better. a was a situation, but let me just stop and to, well, hold off. these are not whole loves or bank robberies as

a banking ass fusion is saying, in fact, iraq, or is when you actually have someone or an act or someone is going into a bank to see other people's money. what we're actually seeing in lebanon right now is that people are going into the bank to take their own money, but by force, and there's a huge difference, but that because a lot of people, $11.00, she liked that the bank 2nd, as actually robbed them all their own money and since 2019, as you know, we have not been able to access all our deposits. only the rich and the powerful have managed to transfer more than $15000000.00 off of the country, whereby individuals like ourselves are left to deal with the consequences of the collapse. the world bank accused liberties, politicians of staging a ponzi scheme that is quote, caused unprecedented social and economic pain over the last 3 decades. what do you

make of that accusation? yes, i mean, absolutely. and you got to political establishment that has missed managed economy for many years. and here we're talking about the end of the civil war. we're why they ran major structural deficit in the economy. and particularly, i'm talking about the public deficit, public budget deficit and the trade deficit. which means they've allowed the policy whereby they're spending way more money than actually collecting for the treasury. and they're actually importing way more good than the export thing, which led to a policy where you have to keep on attracting capital into lebanon, to finance these 2 deficits. and there were many warnings about this policy to stop it to rectify the government and consecutive lebanese governments where they ought to be blamed all the political parties. our did not do anything about it, but they actually kept these policies in dock. and the central bank came to

facilitate the financing of such a scheme whereby the, i fact that people to put their money in lebanon when interest rates are higher than other places in the world. and in fact, the banking sector got so really into this where they actually invested 70 percent of their portfolio into the state central bank and the government. and hence mismanaged our own money. and led to this major fun to scheme which ended up, you know, with a talk to the financial and social kind of apps if you're talking about. so there's a lot of people to be named here, the political establishment, the government, the parliament has also failed to do anything. i want to in fact, to facilitate this by hijacking economic reforms as well. the central bank was the architect of this policy and the banking sector, and you know, they benefit that the most of this, you know, and they made a lot of profits before the crisis at our expense. all right, so here's the $1000000.00 question. how does lebanon get out of this financial mess? so the prescription to get out of that message is very clear. now are there or not

is clear the set of policies that need to be in place. ok are clear and many people have been talking about them and they're very straightforward. you need to have a couple of control to stop in the money leaving the country. you need to knock the structuring law. you need to go on to the central bank. and so forth, the prescriptions of what to do a search forward. but here's the issue. the government has refused to conduct any of these implement any of these reforms. and the last 2 years, this is unheard of where whites a country is witnessing a social and economic collapse for the last 3 years. and the state, the government department hasn't done anything to protect the people. so they don't want to do these forms. in fact, the fact that the banks, you know, and to protect their own interests and then a few things to do any of these. there have been 6 or 7 draft of the company for long and parliament. and yet we haven't been able to implement any of these. so

this is a situation whereby the political, any wants to protect this interest is refusing to, in fact, conduct any of this reforms despite even i m. s. sisters. but these are going to be the conditions for i need future law and, and you know, just that it was in fact a and i m f that edition here. if this sounds like the new government for not doing this job, but some of this, this situation can go on indefinitely. how do you see it coming to an end? the problem is we have only 6 to 9 months money to buy in ports, you know, from this central bank reserves. so clearly that time is ticking. there's no more time to pick the kind of way as the lebanese policies, the policy should have been doing bad for the last 20 years. their time is up and the solution needs to be implemented. now the question is, where they have the weather to actually undertake the forms which they have 15 for

the last 20 years. or they will actually pretend they're doing that a forms. and i knew them in such a way that they actually black me and in dollars community to actually give money to lebanon. so people don't go hungry at all. so the situation again, the technical situation, technical solution to the problem is very clear. the prescription order, ready, clear, but they refuse to hold them because it's highly let the can or these political lead and their own financial and economic interest. so they gonna have to choose either they're going to bring the whole country done, which already done so. and even more so, or they take this possibility and put on tracks, they have fit to do that. and so i'm expecting the kids are going to get worse and lebanon, you know, until, and we're going to go into very uncertain periods. so me, thanks for explaining all that for us really appreciate it. many thanks. and 8, sir. ah,

almost 70 percent of the world's poorest countries will have to repay at least $52000000000.00 in debt this year. a more than a quarter of that money will go to china. much of a loans are linked to infrastructure projects as part of the chinese president, she's in pings belt and rhode initiative. now, many of beijing's borrowers are not able to beat their financial obligations. the international monetary fund says that china and other big creditors have a responsibility to prevent debt problems exploding the i m. f. estimates that 25 percent of emerging market and 60 percent of low income countries were in or near debt distress. china says that it will forgive $23.00 interest free loans to 17 african nations and redirect $10000000000.00 worth of it's i m f, reserves to africa. will china is one of the was largest single creditor nations. and researchers have found that around 60 percent of beijing's overseas lending is

now to low income countries, which are in debt distress or at high risk of it. it's loans to lower and middle income countries are estimated to have tripled over the past decade, reaching more than $170000000000.00 by the end of 2028th date up the u. s. based research lab says the pakistan, so lanka and argentina, a 3 of the largest recipients of chinese rescue lending. most stations share information about by lending activities through membership, what's known as the paris club. but china isn't part of that group and doesn't publish records of it's foreign loans. or johnny us not from hong kong is commas, casanova, a senior economist at union banker pre they will you be pete? call us, good, heavy with us. on the uh, counting the cost, what she'll take then on this issue of, of chinese law loans as, as creditors, what sort of people are they to borrow from? thanks for having on the show. so china has in fact become much larger creditor in

the past decade or since the launch of it's built on road initiative in 2013. of course, china as a financial system differ slightly to that offered by other lenders such as the i m, f for other members of the always be let paris club in that it doesn't come with added conditionality. by conditionality we mean, you know, political reforms sterility and other conditions that are not always very popular amongst some emerging countries. so china is able to navigate the political risks because it doesn't have to abide by the norms for ending. so it's bundles, it financial assistance with other commercial aspects, for example, involving some of the state on and the prices agreeing to repayments in commodities

as well as us dollars. and so in that way, it is able to perhaps tap on areas of the emerging world that are not well serviced by existing lenders. the i m f and other developed countries. but does the fact that the china does things differently, pose a risk both to lend and borrower? well, there is a reason why the largest lenders such as the i, m f and a to be, are not able to do some of the things that time is able to do. typically we are looking at countries where the solar and risk is higher and the projects where the returns or the visibility in terms of future returns are not as clear as other parts of the world. i think the main thing that entices countries to take on these sorts of credits from china is the chinese economic miracle. and everybody wants to have a similar narrative in their, in their country. china has been very successful, eradicating poverty over the past decade. so everybody wants

a slice of that pie too. but of course, when projects turns sour, or when the cost of servicing the debt and maintaining the infrastructure becomes prohibitive, then you have countries that stumble into stress and that service and cannot service their short term debt and have to incur silver into false. but if she can't afford to pay back that, that to china, what risk does that pose to the chinese economy? so as i mentioned, china is able to partially offset some of this risk by allowing the repayment to take shape in the form of commodities. historically, this has been very advantageous for china in places such as swale or with oil and copper exports. it is not perhaps a strong driver in places that just rely on we can talk about that as well where, you know, the main commodity that we would be looking at is exports of t. so there,

you know, they have more, more risk and we are seeing that risk out into a more complex discussion around the countries that restructuring efforts with the i m f. and also the role that china is saying in the, in that conversation is china becoming a competitor to the m. s. a of the world bank order. they work in tandem and partnership? i think they work in tandem. china is becoming a bigger creditor. so in a sense, emerging markets, especially those that have not been able to act the financing from the i, m f or emerging countries that have been frustrated with a lack of progress in the m. s. in terms of representation of emerging markets within the fund. they are increasingly, or they have been increasingly turning to china as an alternative, so in, in a sense it is competing. but of course, the nature of chinese aid is very different to that of the m f. the magnitude of both them project, both enrolled in infrastructure investments to date is of course smaller compared

to what the m f has done given is longer track record. so for me and for emerging markets in this more complex environments, i think it's important that both are working in time them to, to minimize risk with some nations now struggling to, to pay back the debt to china. what does that mean for the belt and road initiative and, and could china step scale back? it's lending to countries. in fact, we have already seen this since 2019. we have seen infrastructure spending and under the belt and road actually decrease significantly. part of the reason was that many countries in the emerging world experience the decline in g d, p, and, and revenues following from the pandemic going forward. the stress is slightly different because we're looking at a very hawkish fed rising rates. the liquid at the inflation also within china. some of the risks have started to pile,

so we see difficult conversations in places such as st. i'm kind of course, with the domestic economy also entering a, a phase of a slower activity. the appetite or the domestic sentiment towards offering some of these riskier loans to emerging markets is lower than it has been before. so our expectation is that we will continue to see a deceleration in both turn road projects over the coming years. and hopefully, once all of the uncertainty surrounding, you know, rising risks of recession in the u. s. and everything that's happening with a threat is over, we might see a pick up in an activity once again, call us, it's been really good to talk to you on counting across many thanks to being with us. now sustainable finance, it's largely defined as investment decisions based not only on financial returns as investors traditionally expect, but also with an eye on environmental, social and governance. saw e s g factors put simply investing money and projects that can make the world

a better place. renewable energy, for example, global, sustainable investing assets. regional was $35.00 trillion dollars in 2020. but what is e s g? exactly. we put that question to zoe night. the group head of h. s. p c, center of sustainable finance at head of climate change may not. yes, she still abstract, right? i mean is, it's a bit of a mystery to most people. what the social aspect means, what governance means and what environment means. but if you drill it down, the whole a gender is about people. it's about access to employment and jobs. a how a people's jobs going to be impacted by this climate gender. it's about sort of the access to money for change. how he doesn't change that. how we deliver a stronger, more prosperous economy that works for everybody. we know that the science is

telling us to get to a net 0 emissions framework by 2050. and we know that finance must provide capital to the solutions and must think about the consequences of wilma temperatures and how that might affect our clients and affect their ability to operate in their business. models is g factors in our front and center for governments and businesses here in the gulf where the potential of unlocking 2 trillion dollars in economic growth more than $1000000.00 jobs by 2030. so in i says, the region is looking at investments in carbon capture and hydrogen to make the energy transition. this region is abundant in energy and it's providing energy services to the entire world. equally, it will be host to the climate talks in november this year and november next year, that gives the region an opportunity to create its own narrative, honor energy, future,

and energy vision. how the climate transition plan will play out across the gulf. the task of egypt in cop 27 is to show the implementation that is going on on the ground to really showcase projects on the carbon is ation that work in progress. now they're in training whether it's green hydrogen, whether it's carbon capture and storage. how that is shifting the way the energy flows worked today. last year's climate summit. so banks, insurers and investors with $130.00 trillion dollars and assets pledging to help win the world of fossil fuels. we've set a target on financing of up to a trillion over the next day is to support the sustainable finance transition agenda. the mission critical. what we're also doing is working with external coalitions to build the framework for what transition looks like across different

sectors and industries. and with doing that in conjunction with an initiative that came out of the glasgow climate towards the glasgow financial alliance and 0 g funds. so what we find is by collaborating across both other banks with our clients and with industries and governments and regulators. we can discuss the challenges and discuss the barriers for change and figure out how finance can really unblock them and commercialize activities that perhaps haven't been commercialized. paul bob way is facing growing food shortages and farmers are resorting to old farming techniques to cope with extreme weather conditions. tray pot irrigation can save large amounts of water without depriving crops. i'll just, there was a tough reports now from the town of chicago to to reasons why mean his garden is thriving under this lit, sunk up to sneak into the ground, is one of several clay pots, irrigating her tomatoes. this alternative way of growing

food is ideal, was embalming a country prone to drought and re people don't get regular supplies of piped water from the council. he normally did africa. yes. even when there is no water. my vegetables are all is green. it's been days without water here, but the clay pots are all, is watering my tomatoes, using clay pots to water crops is not a new farming technique. it's used in other parts of the world, and now it's gaining traction in zimbabwe. the clippers are here for some small time in your visible. i'm a pause of that i used to fall. oh, does it be the water that is inside the cliff? it deceives around the da da da da da clothes the did it yourself for to send to meet us? saw the did the plans our own good? yes or for to since it was just gets off, the water is rising. sweet prices high. a fuel costs and inflation at 285 percent

in august means many families are battling. the mob is government plans to distribute food aid to more than 2000000 vulnerable families from october. that number is expected to go up next year. it's not as rural households, people in urban areas are also going hungry. and a privileged communities often run out of food in october. the drives period before the rainy season, the you in also plans to assist had been hunger if something got tra, we'll started to see more, ah, during the course 19 pandemic. so it's something that is fairly new is, you know, the water program are used to work mainly in the rural areas. but now we have started to sin some pockets in cities and towns where these are had been hung, the clay pots cost $5.00 each buying in bulk can be expensive. so communities also use plastic bottles with holes poked into them. they will just as well for some

families in urban areas, these water saving techniques are a lifeline. help them grow food for themselves and sometimes a little extra to sell harder matessa al jazeera chiquita zimbabwe. and that's all show for this week. if you'd like to comment on anything that you've seen, you can treat me. i'm at a finnegan on twitter. if you can please use the hash tag a j, c t c. or you can drop us a line count in the costa al serra dot net is our e mail address, as always, was plenty more for you online at al jazeera dot com slash ctc. that takes you straight to our page and there you'll find individual reports, links, even entire episodes fee to catch up for that is it for this edition of counting the cost on adrian, federal for the whole t. derenzo. thanks for being with us. the news on al jazeera is next ah

ah, ah ah, from breaking down the headlines to exposing the powers attempting to silence reporting, the listening post doesn't just cover the news. it covers the way the news is covered on al jazeera. ah. ready