for latin america, it has the same transparency scoring. the indexes, canada, when you're away is one of our top for performance in several years. and it is not a coincidence that the countries a strong democracy in some more a united society and institutions work well. what does that mean? it means that checks on balance is operate. well, it means that they have a judiciary daddy's a strong and independent. there's a reward for that. your wife has the highest per capita income. the lowest rate in the quality enlighten america. not alone seems we're fighting for if of governments here are interested. john homan, al jazeera metzger city. ah ha, you watching out his ear, and these are the headlines this hour. the russian defense ministry says 63 of its

service men have been released by ukraine. moscow says some of those frayed are in a sensitive category. united arab emirates helped mediate the deal from moscow as some of injured aid has moved. not much details about whether this release was made possible. and what did, how was it made possible? and what did russia had to do in return? was it an exchange? as we've seen in the past few months, where there has been a quid pro quo a where russia releases an exact number of prisoners in exchange for ukraine releasing those prisoners as well. so far, no confirmation from cube about this. but this, according to the russian military of defer ministry of defense or is being dealt with these prisoners are being given a psychological and medical assistance. at least 13 palestinians have been injured in the lightest ride in the occupied west bank. israeli forces targeted the up, but java refugee camp, at least 8 people have been arrested. the palestinian red crescent says abeline is

were initially not allowed inside. the head of the roman catholic church has met with religious ladies in south sudan. later on saturday. pope francis will speak with people displaced by years. one conflict is called on ladies to recon meant to pace. people are protesting in the straits of the shower in the northern pakistan calling on authorities to take action against attacks from groups well than 100 people were killed in the city after suicide bombing in a mosque on monday, begging is calling to come as a giant chinese balloon continues to float over the united states. china says it's a civilian whether kraft, but secretary of state entity lincoln says its presence is an irresponsible as a jury in the us is found tesla billing a lot mosque did not the fraud investigation tweets in 2018. the verdict was reached out for less than 2 hours of deliberation following a 3 week trial. and people, inter lank is capital protesting against the cost of

a parade marking independence day. $550000.00 of public funds is being used for the military event in colombo. shanker is in the middle of the worst economic crisis in its history with food fuel and medicine shortages. all right, those are the headlines. i'm emily angland. denise continues here after counting the call. the karone of iris has been indiscriminate in selecting its victims. it's devastating effects of plague, every corner of the globe, transcending class creed and color. but in britain, a disproportionately high percentage of the fallen have been black or brown skins. the big picture traces the economic disparities and institutional racism that is seen united kingdom fail, it citizens britain's true colors. part one on al jazeera, i

hello on the clock. this is county the call center al jazeera. you'll look at the, well, the business and economics this week. europe's population is aging, and france is among many nations struggling to keep retirement schemes afloat. so should work is written much older and who puts the pension bill? also this week, rising interest rates straining the budgets of countries already in debts, egypt and pakistan are among nations vulnerable to default. will they implement much needed reforms? and india's business tycoon, go to a donnie last billions off to fall plains by u. s. investment firm. we explore what's next, the donnie empire. ah, say europeans are living longer as a continence population. grows older, the number of people who contribute to retirement schemes, shrieks,

and as pushing many countries to reform their pension systems to balance the books in france or proposed bill has proven hugely unpopular. the government says it increasingly retirement age is vital to prevent the system from going bankrupt. but unions and left wing politicians. they're not convinced the control receive over the reform centers on res retirement age by 2 years to 64 by 2030. the bill would also increase the minimum number of years that people must pay into the system to get a full pension from 42 to 43 years. it also includes an increase in the minimum pension to around $1300.00 a month and allows those who begin work yet younger ages to retire earlier. we're more than a 1000000 people took to the streets for the 2nd nationwide strike against the pension reforms. reforming the social welfare system is a man or micron signature policy, and he has defended his plan as essential. we spoke to joe old,

a taxi driver nearing retirement in pers purchase for us on these. oh, i am 70 years old. i've been driving taxis for 42 years and if all goes well, i'll be retiring in 2 months. however, you also thought i worked 11 hours a day. sometimes i tried to the saturday morning as well, but it's not always easy if you want family time of young on i was happy working as a taxi driver. i organized it hours to suit me with your i didn't think about my retirement marcia, but the things changed with the pandemic and the crises that follow it. we had these with barely 20 percent of our usual turnover. she all, i did the calculations and my patient will be over the $1000.00 of some on my wife and i are going to struggle to make it to the end of the month. she get several, $320.00. we want the children, so she didn't work much. and when she did, she was miserable. she was exploited more than anything else. so i'm very clearly

briscoe. i feel sick to my stomach because now more and more i am confronted with real life. i am approaching retirement and it feels like it's solving for nothing. some people who are, i am a skirt my, they say to myself, fortunately there are these reforms and they will increase pensions to $1300.50. i have to say, i am almost happy because for me that's an extra $270.00, which is something minimum of but then to make people work for longer is all loose . obviously, everyone knows that if you have to, you do it. but you have to be physically able, you have to be strong and is not easy. it all depends on the job. and many job psychologically or emotionally, dis, 3, you dish, and then you need to find or keep a job. if you're already 5055, your salt is difficult to find work. so i'd almost 70, can you imagine you go to the recruiters and when you tell them your age?

they say sir, it's time to stop working. and i think they are right. is time to stop, although i did of paula will in fact, francis retirement age is among the lowest in europe. the country spent around 14 percent of g. d. p on state pensions in 2019. but it is italy who has the most generous system, spending almost 16 percent of his g. d. p on pensions. and that's followed by greece, which plans to increase pensions this year for the 1st time. in more than a decade. germany spends almost 10 percent of its g d, p on pension, and it's among nations lifting the retirement age to $67.00. the u. k is reportedly lifting it to 68. iceland spends the smallest amount on retirees in europe at 2.9 percent of g d p. yet it is ranked among the top 3 systems. well, joining me now from paris as if he bit vista, who is the director of the economic research department at ostrom asset management . philip, welcome to the show. at the 1st thing,

even if france raises the retirement age to 64, that's still lower than many developed economies say why such up rule why it's a, it's a very complicated situation for us. you know, the question is, why do in your retirement reform now, or we have had the bond to make where the surgeon vision and the so it's a very, it's probably not a good moment to do that. though the 1st rhythm, the soon reason is that as there is a strong political, a reason for that because the opinion on my core, i was logged about charity at the national company. and it's her way to eliminate its power. uncertain as a reform that will take place, probably it's probably not where i was killed in a way for people who are who will die rapidly or will

or will have to postpone the mozy edge of retirement. so if you are 60 while, if you are 55, you have to work longer. not usually in the retirement reform. it takes time for, for drains, then it's due to change restriction. so that's all the reason such, makes here a such are and wrote with the currents in france, right. the thing is that money has got to come from somewhere, isn't it? because if you look at the c, d, 's says that france has very high expected years of life in retirement ranks. second in men at $23.00 and a half years. and 3rd and women at 27 point one years. and that's compared across the continent. and someone has to pay for that, the money has to come from some was that people need to keep working longer than many people agree on here, on reducing to lag. so from the retirement period and working longer, but,

and so there is no really, there is no discussion or on the 3rd august point 022, discussion one. is that why do we doing it now? and the 2nd is, does a former retirement re fall as it was bought a 2014? i've just taken baking 20. 20. 0, can we manage as is 2 reforms of former one which here which will continue and probably we like to write and the new one as a complicated says, what's your answer to that? what's the solution? what should the government solution is to probably love doing it clearly now it's not necessary to do it now. even for a budget reason for a budget bounce reasons it, that's not a necessity. now as your question is, are on wish permit or do we do? we play on, you know, in retirements, can you hover a 3 parameters,

the number of sure of contribution as a neighbor of the pension for retirement as a level of contribution that's for the 3 parameters. and the question is how to, to, to mix all of them. the government says that lifting her, it's on an age will help at racy employment rate. that's going to be a good thing. we have to demonstrate that it has not been shown everywhere. the world is complicated. no, in france, people above 50 years or other very low unemployment rate or for many reason to change. and we are we, we have to which is free. so we have to have a god to make how this improvement dreadful, the people edge above 55 will increase diagnosing about that. so that's a very well situation as the referral since to being not put any

compared to do you know, as you start to wait, we are not sure that the situation is a, are all well into all of the reform i've been worked on. definitely so that so that's why it's complicated. and one final thing it struck me is this reading 3 isn't some facts beforehand that we talked about iceland, 3 percent, just 3 percent of g d, p spent on pensions yet is among the best games in the world. how do they make that what their countries like iceland lighter than mach ugh, it's a very specific retirement scheme in tears. 5 that see it's very small countries, lots of diversified. i've got a surprise. so it's easier to abby or kind of consensus on the different to a puppy. aches and the retirement is one of you can see. so it kind

of put it to agreement or we can have, you know, small country, not in large countries like france. oh, i believe i sure appreciate that. thank you. thank you ah occurrences sinking to record lowes dwindling foreign reserves and ballooning debt like many developing nations, the economic crises in egypt and pakistan have been aggravated by the war ukraine. but other factors have also had an impact among them. the role of military run enterprises in the economy and investments in big and costly infrastructure projects. egypt has a population of more than 100000000 people. one 3rd of them live in poverty. they can't even afford basic foods like eggs and cooking oil, which have doubled in price. the country impose import restrictions and banks limited foreign currency withdrawals to try and conserve scarce dollars. pakistan is also struggling with rising inflation, and it's facing an acute balance of payments crisis with less than 3 weeks worth of

import cover in it's a foreign reserves. egypt and pakistan have both resorted to the international monetary fund to help ease their financial problems. cairo committed to reducing the military's role in the economy as part of the $3000000000.00 i m f package. it also agree to move to a flexible currency exchange rate and slowed down public investment in national projects. pakistan has also taken steps to revive its stalled $7000000000.00 fund. among them is easing control on the currency and hiking up petrol and diesel prices . okay, from garage young join, not by act us. ive sally's, an assistant professor of economics at have university there. i miss, i felt welcome to the program at 1st, tell us more about pakistan and egypt situation, the similarities and how they've reached this point. well, thank you for having me on the show. next. the konami crisis in egypt and pakistan

has many similarities. first of all, both crises came about in the immediate aftermath of the facilities between russia and ukraine. and you might remember that this crisis led to commodities super cycles. in the case of egypt, there was a massive capital flight of about $20000000000.00, and then egypt was importing very expensive because it's one of the, it's actually the biggest cedar important in the ward. and those prices went up in the immediate aftermath of the russia, you can conflict in the case of pakistan, elevated oil prices lead to a classic balance of payments prices. and initially, pakistan tried to deal with it by freezing imports, but very soon both countries are forced to turn back to the i, m f for assistance so that the i m f could assist them in stabilizing that economy . so the efforts that both countries have now made to try and minimize the risk. well, they work well. yes. and no. the efforts that were made by egypt pragmatically,

by turning to friends the out of countries that ford in about $13.00 to $15000000000.00 into the egyptian office. initially it worked, but later on it did not work because they then had to turn to the i m f. in the case of pakistan again, but the son tried to freeze the exchange rate so as to get a handle. well, what important inflation. but they realized that because of this policy decision and because of the overall political instability and pakistan in flows basically dried up and they were also forced to turn to the i m f for assistance when it comes to the evaluations. why was it necessary to do that and how hard was that for people on the street? well, the basic reason has to do with the conditions of the i m. s. that requires exchanged aid in both egypt and pakistan to be determined by market forces. and

yes, it has been extremely painful for people. common people in the case of pockets on inflation is already topping out at 28 percent, which is highest in 50 years. mind you. in the case of egypt, inflation is stopping out at 25 percent. if we look back at the case of pakistan, this massive inflation highest and 50 is also was large. this country has seen enough history pockets on the bottom is calculated. this is going to push an extra 20000000 people into poverty. so this is going to bring about a lot of issues in terms of social unrest, more political instability, and reservation egypt has committed to reducing the military's role in the economy . will that happen? will it work? well, the i m f has asked specifically for the egyptian state, or the military owned businesses to you know,

to extricate themselves only to strategic sectors. i think this is not going to work in the short term or the medium term because when it comes to egypt, almost 2 thirds of the gdp is connected with state or miller pre owned businesses. and this creates a number of different problems. for egypt, for instance, it mitigates against innovation and growth. many private sector businesses don't want to compete with military owned businesses because these businesses have thanks and the quarter doors above us. so this, like i said, mitigates against innovation and growth. if egypt were somehow to get it, get its military out of its economy only by a few percentage points. i think that would open up the space for end to no ship for innovation and for more growth. so that would give that the private sector more opportunity to get involved in both countries. right?

that's right. so in the case of pakistan, i mean, which is somewhat similar to you know, miller trees footprint. it's also very expensive and pakistan the military on serial breakfast, serial factories and fertilizer factories. but the military's economic footprint and pakistan is not as expensive as it is egypt. of course they have been criticisms for on the miller trees business connections or being who bake and for the fact that the allegedly be less tax. so the situation is somewhat similar between egypt and pakistan in terms of the military or the state footprint when it comes to the economy. similarity also in the way that both countries pull billions of dollars into making projects. does that kind of investment work? i think that's more true in the case of egypt where you know, this massive amount of money on billions of dollars have been paid,

have been bored into various vanity projects in the last 10 years. so any where from a new administrative capital to cities in the desert, what this has done is that this has not brought actual foreign direct investment, which would have created jobs and would have been more sustainable source of hard currency. as opposed to that what, what, what this does is that the brings about a classic balance of payments problem and mitigates against growth. as i mentioned previously to you. as far as egypt is concerned, human rights watch is one that the i m f deal. i will leave a 1000000 the economic rights. millions unprotected. do you think that's right? that is the case. i think that is definitely going to these the i m f. petition allergies are definitely going to push more people into poverty just like in baptist, on pocket money for the missed stuff calculated that almost $20000000.00 people are going to be pushed additional $20000000.00 people are going to be pushed into

poverty. so i think this is a very serious situation. this is going to create political unrest in both egypt and buckets. at least in the case of pakistan, the i m f has been somewhat supportive of pockets man's name welfare program or social safety program, which is the fantasy and some support program. all right, we'll have to leave it there. does i? so appreciate that. thank you. thank here. now india is a donnie group has built a fortune with investments across ports, airports, renewable energy, and other industries. but the business empire has recently lost billions of dollars in stock market value. it's founder go to madonna slipped from a list of 10 of the world's wealth is after fraud allegations against his companies by a u. s. investment firm. the tumbling value of a diner group is fair to have broader implications for indian markets. full outcomes after hindenburg research released a report accusing the donnie group of engaging in decades of so called brazen stock

manipulation and accounting fraud. the firm dismissed the report as malicious and accused hindenburg of a calculated attack. the american firm says that a don is extensive rebuttal of its report, ignored, important delegations, and was obligated by nationalism. let's take this on to discuss all of this. i'm joined now by the pankey man who is an associate professor of economics or a peach in global university and director for new economics. studies said to punch mahan, welcome to the program. at 1st up a donnie is a big, significant company in india. what happens here is a big deal, isn't it? yes, absolutely. nick, and one of the key things we need to know is that, and on he has been the poster boy of india's bay aggressive militia, quickly run, particularly from ear 2020. i mean, his company's profits of sort like no other company. even the lawn must of death. laura jeff bezos of amazon have never seen their neck,

would go up at this beast and on his neck. what was somewhere around 9320000000 in september 2019. and this increase to 160000000000 september 2022. so it's a remarkable rise for any business person in india, asia, he is the founder of one of the largest or don't bring it in india, and more importantly, his business as billing right into the money government is big agenda on infra investment. spending. any of the highways boards, including for the infrastructure investment, you've seen the government making across most of the logistical investments. okay. well, it's hugely significant clearly. so what are the implications of this? and is there a danger of broad financial contagion? i think looking at what we see right now, we do see that as

a business of defense from the stock market really responding in a sudden happened over the last week. i wouldn't be on the side of caution by saying that the largest stock market trends. why do they have gone missing? what's happened to the stock market share value collapse and probably the f b not going. but look at a provider financial condition. one needs to be mindful of what's happening with businesses that are connected and have less money to be go. i think that's where a lot of the problem is really live and but the information be how i think the next few weeks of a like. so finding an insurance companies and so forth. absolutely, absolutely. because the boarding strategy for these are the group and the last 3 years, particularly as been looking beyond domestic bass. they've been tapping on some of these mostly in the form of bonds. and the bad funding in india has been restricted,

locked in for years. so there's a lot of exposure in getting back to about in group. but more importantly, and this is where the hindenburg picture really becomes important. the group has chart says not on the phones, so i'm doing cash. but donnie shows focus on international buyers. so whatever happens with the positions exposure, donnie group, external international one would have gamification on the company and in the stock market. now as you mentioned, the dani is closely associated with their end remote east india elementary and see how the prime minister handled with so so far we've not really heard the prime minister dawn of course, and much of the government ministration. and the popular mainstream media has not been picked up on the news at the same time. what he would really be is that the movie line as being delivered to the government's business strategy in the last 9

years, the line so. so i was just be, we'll be back to withdraw. that is the prime minister's on state. and one of the things that need to be more importantly, i think, is the on the gothic linkages and brandy of properties that you generated on structure on which most of all these book and policy push has been pivoting. so my sense is that the government may want the opposite. you may expect that to happen, a full independent examination to say b and maybe even a panel to look at the negations, put forward by hand and both at the same time. also look at the boyfriend and back to that and go i think the center by because i want to be put in an inquiry and this would be be downing or benting. i mean, as opposed to that for it's funny to punch in briefly if you would, what do you make of the allegations and why do you see this heading?

the reasons one is donny was to be the writers in pushing for private investment across sectors. in india, anything happening to the company is big data on the government's own policy agenda investment. the other thing is the underlying indicators. if you were to be a private investment in india, domestic and foreign has been paid by 9, you know that the government does not see competitive private investment really pick up. and when you have a big company like a donnie is facing a stock market collapse in the show that you'd like to be a few weeks. this will discourage many foreign investors to portfolio investment to put that kind of money in india, which is of course, a lot that has to do with the external situations also, but the not going back then. so far we shall see how it all unfolds depends. you

man, appreciate that. thank you. so there is, i'll show for this week. if you'd like to comment on anything you've seen, you can treat me nick clark, al jones, please use the hash tag a j, c. c. we'll just drop as an e mail counting the cost algebra dot net is our address. as morphy one line of course at altitude dot com slash ctc. that will take you straight to our page, which has individual reports linked an entire new to catch up. so that is it for this edition of kind of the cost. i'm a clock from the whole team here. thanks for joining us. the news on algebra is coming up the ah

the 1970s was a pivotal time for cinema in theater in the middle east and north africa lead back to the 2nd of a 2 part series al jazeera world meets the creative risk takers who broke new ground 4th censorship and developed their own voice in the 70s in the arab world stage and screen on al jazeera ah ah.