time when you look at the documents of the national electoral commission, it's already in there as a factor that might delay elections themselves. so they were preparing the argument of course, no credible election can take place if there's so much violence that voting can't, can take place. the violence shows no sign of stopping and 23 said it pulled out of this town of keep them last week following international call for its fighters to withdrawn disarm it has since continued fighting on another front, pushing towards colton minds that it controlled in the past more than half a 1000000 people remain displaced from their homes, mostly because of armed conflict. recent peace talks in nairobi, fail to bring any change on the ground. for now, people must wait to see if the arrival of more foreign forces in the months ahead. and the upcoming election make things better or worse. malcolm web al jazeera.

ah, this is out to sara and these other top stories. now the u. s. has joined a growing list of countries imposing coded 19 restrictions on people arriving from china becomes just the day off the beijing announced it would drop all quarantine meshes for inbound travelers. u. s. joins, it's the, taiwan, india and japan in requiring negative tests for anyone traveling from china. i want to ask correspondence, kimberly how kit has more. all the platinum ministration is concerned that the chinese government is not being fully transparent. and this is a concern that goes back to the start at the pandemic, and as such as a result of the ease of the restrictions in recent days in china as well as what the us says or a spike in cases in china us is taking measures to ensure that there isn't

a spike of cases of coat with 19 in the united states, particularly when it comes to some various of the i'm, a kron variant. ukraine's military says, russian forces have stepped up more to and artillery attacks on this. if you have on 33, miss sounds were fine. civilian targets, some hit, a hospital. the maternity ward ukraine's military has resumed its counter offensive and eastern region over the hands. too large cities, there are still under russian control. several western states in the us are battling major flooding. days after severe winter storm struck most parts of north america, california, oregon, and washington state of oregon affected so far. israel's new government is promising to make expanding illegal israeli settlements and occupy the west bank. a top priority statement of policy priorities released by benjamin netanyahu could party says, quote,

jewish people have an unquestionable exclusive right to the whole land of israel. and united nations and 8 groups are urging authorities in galveston to reverse orders against women's work and education. they say critically needed. humanitarian programs have stopped because of a band by the taliban administration. on female aid workers. there's all the headline. news continues here and i'll just say are after counting the cost. lebanon is facing a range of crises, political, economic, and humanitarian. children are hungry, and many people are jobless, while others die at sea. in the midst of the despair, one group is often overlooked. they don't have enough money to buy something to eat . al jazeera goes to the heart of palestinian refugee cans in lebanon. the full re pulled stories of a forgotten people on al jazeera. ah,

[000:00:00;00] with hello ma'am rob matheson. this is counting the cost on al jazeera, your weekly looked at the world of business and economics this week, getting more buying for your buck. the dollars been on the up in 2022. what's next for the greenback? also this week, gold hasn't been due so well this year, but could now did the perfect time for investors to pile back in. questions over cryptic crypto prices have been sliding all year. we're going to look what's next for these in tangible assets as the industry struggles to regain trust. now, the u. s. dollar,

it's stronger now than it's been for 2 decades. that's because of the federal reserve with the central bank raises interest rates. it makes the greenback more appealing to investors around the global, but the global economy is teetering on a cliff edge than it fears mount of a world wide recession. dollars a scene is a safe place to hold your money. now, this shows how the doll has been doing against nearly all other g. 20 economies. over all the picture seems pretty good. the greenback rallied around 19 percent in 2022. the dollar is still strong, even though the u. s. economy has been weakened by the coven pandemic, and a threatening global recession. it's be going a lot going up things too aggressive rate hikes by the federal reserve, economic issues overseas and geopolitical uncertainty from the war in ukraine. but there's one big stand on the dollar versus the russian rouble. we're going to get into that later on to discuss all of this and join now by francesco, papa. dia francesco is former director general for market operations at the

european central bank. he's also currently a senior resident fellow at the bro, go, thank. thank, thank you very much. indeed for being with us. the dollar is still dominating the investment markets around the world, the currency markets around the world. and yet u. s. economy has over the last few years because of the pandemic, primarily, but other issues being faltering. why is it that the dollar is still so popular still? well, that dollar has characterised, you know, other currency has, 1st of all, the most to develop the sophisticated financial market in the world, then an economy that, notwithstanding current issues is still the most important economy economy in the world. then beyond that, there is the strength of the us as a country, merely to really, politically that remains of the most dominant country in the world. so it's no surprise that the dollar is says,

the are having the site important the currency market in the financial world. one of the things i think that might surprise a lot of people is the fact that the rubles been actually performing pretty pretty well. it's not more than 30 percent against the dollars since march. and yet, as we know, the russian economy is said to be struggling at the moment. what do you attribute that to? well, i don't think i would give a lot of weight that to that. first of all, we don't know how liquid the mike, the rubel is that we know that there are 4 and a change that's not controlled. and then it's a fact that the inputs of russia just because the sanctions have gone down very that he shall be there. so the current account is in, in high, sharp. so i would not take the strength of rouble as a sign of strengths of the underlying russian economy. we've heard stories for saudi arabia, for example, just recently said that it was going to do trade deals with china in remember,

as opposed to other currencies, which means of course, that saudi arabia is building up a stockpile of remember, does not in any way limit, saudi arabia in terms of its ability to trade for other countries, particularly against the dollar. well, i mean, there is no comparison between the re, may be and the dollar in terms of liquidity in terms of underlying financial market, where they heard what they hear about the different countries putting part of their reserves. they may be, it's a pilot just to test the market just to see how it works. there is nothing substantial and the, the weight of that a mean be, for instance in foreign reserves is very limited on cost of that. i mean, be, is one of the, of the, of the, the, are about this is a more a political than economic economics that there is a future further re mean be, but just that a future, nothing currently in terms of people's reliance on the dollar. how much of it is

down to the fact that as you were talking about before the dollars? so the structure that has built around the dollar is so strong that actually it would take a great deal to logistically and pick all of that in order to focus on another currency is that a legitimate argument is to some degree and inertia for people wanting to have to go to the effort of detached themselves and the dollar. well, there is no shame in the that the weight is called in economic network effect, which is the clear case for telephone, for instance. i mean, there's no purpose of having a telephone. if you have nobody on the other side of the line and the more people you can reach you with the telephone, no more the telephone is west. and that's the same with, with a dollar. i mean there is a strong network effect then. but this, you know, i would repeat is based on the stronger foundations, i mean, the only country that could resolve the dollar is that you repeat unit what is

far behind in many, including the sophistication of the financial markets. and everybody else is, is way, way, way below. what does surprise, a lot of people, myself included, is the exposure that many countries around the world have to the dollar, particularly at times of crisis when we see the, the level of antagonism, for example, we see between russia and the u. s. and china and the u. s. and that the holdings of dollars and china, of dollars by china and russia still seem to be significant. do you think, given recent worse world events or countries like that are perhaps going to try and move away from the amount of dollars that they have in order not to expose themselves to the level of sanctions that the u. s. can subsequently bring in? well, i think that there is a difference between russia and china. i mean, the holding of dollars of china are being commensurate higher than the holding of the dollars by, by russia. so just, i kind of

a procedural point on your question. i'm sure there is the wish to move away from the dollar, but we're doing the wish and the realization. there is the fact that no other currency, as i said with the very polish and exception of the euro dollar have the same liquidity, the same ability to trade, the same underlying force of the financial market. so yes, so there is a wish to do it, but then when it comes to it, it's very difficult to do it. and for instance, for china. but thank you, that differentiating the trillions of dollars of reserves into other currencies is very, very difficult. also, because any move of that kind, i would have doesn't value of their own return. so you know, way they are caught into this and it's difficult to move away. yes. so they will try, but it's difficult to do it. i mentioned before, you're a former director general for market operations at the

e. c. be given your level of experience. how do you see the currency markets and the dollar market particularly moving forward in the next few years? are we going to see any significant changes the way that dollars and other currencies are trading? well, the foreign exchange market is this, when, when it comes to the large guarantee. so, so you are a dollar yen dollar stalling euro is the most resilient or the most sophisticated market in the world. of course it doesn't have much of a structure in the sense that much of that just goes on bilateral deals. but it's a very strong market and it's a market that never stopped functioning, even during the most deep crisis. the only competitor to that in terms of the creativity is the treasury market of the united states. but we know that there have been some trend mostly in that market as well. so i would say that

for a change of market, the most resilient market in the global financial, global financial world. so there is a need to have more transparency into, into the market. and so i see that that could be moved in that in that direction. but i don't think that there will be dramatic changes seen the way the major guarantees are exchanged. francesco poverty, or we really appreciate your giving us the benefit of your expertise. thank you very much for joining us on counting the cost. you're welcome. so what's next to for gold? well, it's always being seen as a safe haven for investors. many turn to the precious metal to protect the hard earned savings when high inflation hits other investment products. but gold is denominated in dollars, so the strength of the greenback can have a significant impact on its price. well, with us now is on that he's the chief investment strategist for middle east of africa,

the well known international brokerage all parties joining me now from one to very good to have you with us in your estimation, what's been happening to gold over the last year say, thank you very much now firstly, what's really precious global financial. the share included us and all that stuff says, this is trevor. the green back as she pointed out, the green back that had its strongest year in roughly 20 years. and we haven't seen the pace of us interest rate increases from the us be so aggressive in a generation. so essentially the strong for the dollar has pushed all global assets to lower, including us denominated assets such as god. so this is essentially what happens at gold practice. we still look up a long term goal is roughly $1760.00 to you. this is an all time high for gold, pretty much historically whether gold prices have dropped as much as 20 percent based on the dollar strength is recover and now, but the strength of the dollar,

which is like a store to remain supported as much make gold crisis i mean, it's all done to the interest rate rises with by the federal. are there other elements that could be playing into this as well? essentially, yes, the us interest rate rises up. pickens list like we say, the global economy right now. let's say it's a large piece of cake. k, just divide into different pieces. we've got us interest rate increases because inflation rates globally, we've gone to the global energy practice. of course, we're still seeing the drawbacks from the cobra and damage, and the impact of government are in and locked down at the same point because it's very unfortunate that's taken place in eastern europe. all of these factors altogether has been what driven the dollar towards its highest level and roughly 20 . yes. and we can't say to any one isolated factor, but all of these factors combined really considered a dollar. at the same point, there is some hope that the dollar has peaked, which would be supporting the gold prospects and other global assets over the medium sound as well. so miss around that in the event that interest rates, right?

interest rates do come down. i would like to see people making an exodus from gold or and if so, where would they be likely to go or do they stick with it? actually the concern is going to be inverse with the likelihood because lower interest rate dictations are science that we've seen a peak and interest rates, obviously, inflation to remain a very sustained level. bunch signs of a cool down could actually increase to get towards precious metals. like gold, and this is because the page of the u. s. interest rate increases, which is obviously the dollar significantly the share that's likely to cool down we see proper taken on the us dollar. we are more than likely to see rebounding gold prospects. and in fact, this is a trend that we're starting to see over the past couple of weeks in global financial markets were china and hysteria and russia are 3 of the main producers of gold in the world. what kind of impact does that demand have on their economies? if anything. well, if you're looking for the longer term go,

practice is still very high. $1750.00 above this level would still be 10 years ago . the highest level we've seen the global financial crisis. and as we saw the peak in, because it would go to 2000, we also saw a rebound source. those levels are the beginning of the ukraine bowl. and since then, we should go down. but generally speaking of the longer term go, crisis is still strong. so this is still supported towards those economists produces gold at the same time, obviously. and of course, if we do see a rebound increase in gold, you ation there should be positive news that was produced is also i'd so far it all seems very positive. but historically speaking, has there ever been a time when gold prices, or at least gold, as an investment, has become really not worth that? and we've seen people moving away from it. and if so, what would be the signs that we should look for in the event that was likely to happen? this is an excellent point i'm wanting to point out here is that the global economic concerns and the potential crisis where now is continued difference of the global

financial crash the 15 years ago. now, 15 years ago this was seen as like the birth of gold, something that really pushed all precious higher. but the same point then interest rates globally would be in push slower. today we're having a completely different set of forces pushing interest rates higher, which is being negative goal prices. at the same time, we do think best potential as long as you see around the global economy as it contains books on the right course thing is cross there that we can see optimistic 2023 for gold. if you had any spare cash lying around with gold, be your 1st option or would you be looking at other possible investments as well? not necessarily because you have to follow the trend and very clearly, the trend is being your friend in 2022. and that friend has been the us dollar an uncertain times, such as the very sensitive dynamics we've taken place right now in the global economy. the donor is still your best friend. hopefully we see a bit of

a change towards the global circumstances that might mean the dollar. it's not so much of your best friend, and we can start to bring other friends into the mix, such as gold mail, and we appreciate you being with us on kind of the cost. thank you very much indeed for your time, sir. well, that's not been a great year for trip to currencies, particularly the companies behind them. the still isn't much oversight of the market. and there are growing calls from regulators and even some crypto industry leaders for more controls but kind dominates the market. it's search by 300 percent at the start of the pandemic in 2020 investors. we're looking for safety for economic volatility since and high inflation fuel shortages and the water ukraine. or caused a sell off and perceived risky assets like stocks and crypto currencies. so the markets already volatile and key crypto lenders have seen a slew of other setbacks for the industry, including withdrawal limits and the collapse of the crypto giant, f, d x,

which being causing more panic and more cells. want to talk about those issues in more detail. let's bring in hugh robert space, director of research and analytics that conte insight in london. very good to have you with us. what's your assessment of how the industry has been working, say over the last 12 months or so? 02 bit of background 1st, because content we come to to be from a macro perspective. so when we're looking at an industry like what we're really thinking, well point does this kind of new, relatively new industry start to behave a bit more like a traditional financial asset. and the short answer there is, for the 1st part of this year, it wasn't trading like a macro instrument. it was like an equity or commodity or any other risky asset. it was being driven by news that was specific to crypto. so it was nice things like the merge i guess for, for syria. but around early summer time, our model showed that actually, all the major currencies, bitcoin, us area,

i'm all moved into new macro regimes. and what we mean by that is that all of a sudden they behave much more like traditional financial markets. they care about inflation. they care about what the state is doing. they care about what sister asset classes, whether they're dollar strengthening, with the credit spreads widening. and the main message from that was in a period of high inflation and to the stand and others, central banks, hiking interest rates that was negative or risky assets including crypto. so the bear market was something that was entirely consistent with the kind of broad macro fundamental conditions. and how much is it also about faith? i don't understand a tremendous amount, but about crypto currency simply because to me it's incredibly technical. but to an outsider like me, it seems as though it is essentially based on the trust of the people that are creating the cryptic currency that is going to work and the trust of people investing in it, that it will work. but as soon as that trust is gone, then things start to come apart. how fragile is the market?

would you say, even though it's at a macro macro economic stage that you're talking about? yeah, i mean, that's a very fair summary. i mean, in a way that the central tendons, this whole decentralization means that you remove a trusted are going to central counter party. now for traditional financial players . now, one of the big lessons from the 20082009 financial crisis was the important of the counter party. you and i could have a bet now on whether the dollar is going to get stronger this year next year. and i might be right and you might be wrong, but if i say i was a counter party, then you got no one to actually pay out your winnings. so the importance of the ex frost at the counter party is absolutely critical to the financial system. and as soon as you lose that trust, and that's obviously we've had a few blows already, but the latest f t x as obviously just taking this to a whole new level. so i think your summary is very fair and i think the short

answer to your question is, this is done. i'm told damage to the industry as a whole, and you've got to think there will be some die hard to stick to the end. but anyone who is a marginal participant, you've got to think this is very scary news. how much of this is done to the reliability for want of about a phase of crypto currency itself and how much of it know is about the efficient running of the companies which are supporting it as for example, the example, the used f t x. yeah, absolutely. so i think the that the 2nd part of that question is probably the most important part. i mean, they were just know what we can tell our i'm not a specialist in the area of regulation or compliance, but you know, the more news that emerged in november with regards to the s t x story suggest a complete absence of control all the normal regulation and compliance checks that should be seen in the most basic one segregation of accounts. people who are

depositing money with f t x. it was in the contract. that money should not be that it went on to a trading i'm and yet there was a back door side thing that money out. so that is just about basic one or one company policy company regulation. and if you, if you destroy that and it does a lot of damage reputation, yes, it's going to again to be on your question is going to really damage trust over the last year or so we've seen or heard stories of a significant number of governments from a local level up to a national level investing and things like bitcoin and other crypto currencies. there are countries which are bringing it, are attempting to bring it in as legal tender. is that a mistake? or do you think that actually they are doing the right thing as long as the company's running it are regulated? yeah, i have no degree of specialization in this area, but i would towards that not being there, you can actually get a good thing. know a lot of the technology underpinning this now to block chain. i don't know, some of the advantages that it brings are clearly beneficial for individuals for

companies, for the broader system. but for it to operate from outside of any control has to be a mistake in my opinion. so i think having kind of central bank digital tokens, given the central central banks have to main roles. typically it varies country by country. but on the whole, central banks are there to fight inflation, keep inflation under control and oversee that countries financial system and ensure stability. so they have a vested interest and ensure that there are no blocks on their watch. so central banks having involvement in this, in the crypto industry, to my mind is, is almost inevitable, taking the wider view. and i appreciate, of course, that you know that that's what you do want inside. and if it gets to the states where crypt occurrences are, do become regulated in a similar way to say regular banks. if they become more exposed to the macro

economics that we see around the world. what's the benefit of them compared to regular currencies, for example? and investments one of the kind of technical advances that it gives you is, is the efficiency from any kind of traditional financial market asset allocation perspective. if you like. the way that the traditional investor will think about things as well, given where we are in economic cycle, what's the best asset class to, to put my money in. so if we're in a kind of an economic boom, then you'll invest in risky assets like equities, crypto is going to be viewed as a risky asset, so it will tend to do well in good times. if we're asked that question we scenario, as many people say, or maybe chipping over into recession in 2023, then people will look for safe havens. now, one more encrypt i was how that as a safe haven. i don't think anyone would really buy that argument today, but the other argument that gets rolled out with crypto currency is an inflation hedge. and actually we have the ability in our. ready models to look at the

independent relationship between an asset and all the various macro factors, including inflation and been going does do a good job of tracking inflation expectations. so these relationships have been flow. that's the whole point of the business on the white markets trade. but i can see advantages for crypto over and above the technical, technological advances that it brings as potentially maybe the information. for example, here of it's a director of research and analytics content site in london. we appreciate your being with us. i thank you very much in the thank you and that is our show for this week, but remember, you can get in touch with this via switch up. use the hash tag agent ctc. when you do or you can drop us an email, our address is counting the cost at al jazeera dot next. but this more for you online at al jazeera dot com slash ctc, that's going to take you straight to a page and get individual ports links an entire episode for you to catch up on. and

that's it for this edition of kind of the cost. i'm roll matheson the whole team. thanks for joining us. the news and algebra is next. ah yes.

with january. oh now to a 0, almost a decade off the joining the e u croatia. adults, the euro, despite fears, it could lead to price increases and already tough economic times immersive, personal short documentaries, africa, direct showcase is african stories from african filmmakers can public private partnerships sold some of the world's most pressing challenges when government, business and civil society leaders meet for the world economic for rigorous debate

and unflinching questions. up front, cut through the headlines to challenge conventional wisdom. senegal host, the all africa musical celebration of talent and creativity. corners of the african continent. genuine analogies in a journey, both dog to perceive uniform. there's a very for everything, there's a lot of corruption and beautiful lake and beautiful lady just to be very patient and already so. so say as assembly, because i was introduced to her when my father and my mother were a king for king, for had the personal story to discover the source of one of the most expensive commodities sent from headland on al jazeera ah,