well, unity and not because of ideological differences as in the past, the red carpet may be out to welcome the visiting dignitaries. but the fact that many of the leaders in specially the to president of the regions largest economies are not coming does not bode well for i bureau american cooperation. for those leaders, domestic rather than regional matters are taking priority. so they will have no say here in yet another thorny issue agreement on how to deal with the tax against human rights and grog law of salvatore, cuba, peru and venezuela, which are also posing devices yet another sign of trouble times in the americas. see in human al jazeera santo domingo. ah. just quick update of the main stories before we leave you and the man who save more

than 1200 lives during their wand and genocide and inspired the film hotel ra wonder has been released from prison. horace as a beginner, was 2 years into a 25 year sentence on terrorism charges overtime to an organization opposed to our wanton president, polk a gummy he was captured after being tricked into returning from exile. you are secretary of state as the blank ins as he welcomes the release and is thankful to know poor b, rejoining his family soon. meanwhile, their london government spokeswoman yolanda mcculler explained the terms of his release to al jazeera. what is important to note it that there is consensus that serious crimes were committed and that wonder was justified in pursuing, arresting, and convicting, pulled us as a beginner and his call accused. and they are being developed, they have received clemency now. oh, in accordance with our laws, based on their requests and oh,

their sentences have been commuted. this does not mean that there are the underlying convictions are extinguished. you are stalks of closed hire after a week start to friday session on the heels of a cell off in european bangs let my deutscher bank shares in the german giant, close down 8 and a half percent amid ongoing fears of a crisis in the banking sector. the german chancellor alive sholtes has tried to reassure europeans in the markets that the bank is profitable. israel's attorney general is accused the prime minister benjamin netanyahu of breaking a conflict of interest law by getting directly involved in his government's judicial overhauled plan. while he was standing trial for corruption, now senior who has been met with protests on an official visit to the u. k, he insist that he will proceed with these changes and a dual haitian jolaine citizen has pleaded guilty in a u. s. court to 3 charges over his role in the assassination of haitian president jovan alamo. eas, adolfo jar is one of the 11 defendants in the case. he acknowledged he provided

money to pay for weapons, food and lodging for others. suspected in the shooting of noise in 2021 country has been struggling to coat with rising gang violence and political instability. counting the cost is next brushes. invasion of your crime has a beautiful country to apply for knighthood. membership austria, however, has shown no interest in joining the alliance. think that either you are with us or you against us. this is a very simplified way of looking at the power, the austrian foreign minister tunes to well to see i hello, i'm molly inside. this is counting the cost on al jazeera,

your weekly look at the world of business and economics. this week caught between a rock and a hard place. the u. s. federal reserve has raised interest rates again to rain in inflation baths, despite the turmoil across the financial sector. so has the fed made the right decision? also this week plunged into darkness. lengthy blackouts, accosting south africa, hundreds of millions of dollars a day. can africa's most industrialized economy fixes electricity crisis and 20 years since the u. s. invasion of iraq opec 2nd largest oil producer, is still struggling to improve basic services. ah, the federal reserve has raised interest rates again for the 9th time by a quarter of a percentage points in an attempt to rein in price increases in the us. but the measure could once again depressed the value of bonds on banks balance sheets,

which has been linked to the turmoil in the global banking system. at his latest meeting, the fed was forced to make the tough choice between focusing on bringing down inflation or holding right steady to avoid market turmoil. so why did the fed stay the course? we'll discuss this with our guests in just a moment. after this report from gabriel at his own day on the state of the u. s. economy, the u. s. economy is certainly giving off a lot of mixed signals. right now. on one hand, there's a banking crisis that has the markets teetering, but there's also some positive signs as well. i spoke to maxwell, an economist here in new york city to try to make sense of it all. most americans are nervous, some are really suffering and no one really knows exactly what's going on. inflation was a big deal last year where it reached over 9 percent in june,

in response to federal reserve raised interest rates. and it did the job bringing inflation down to about 6 percent where it is today. but that's still high because most economists say the target is around one to 2 percent. inflation will be less of a problem going forward, but we have a lot of instability risk around the global supply chain and around the conflict in russia and ukraine. higher interest rates might have health, low inflation, but it's also had a negative effect on the housing market. that's because interest rates during the pandemic, we're down to historic lows of about 2 percent. today, they're up to about 7 percent. what i think the housing markets best days for a while or probably in the rear view mirror, not the windshield. the fed will raise rates until they start to break things and then they'll be a panic. and that moment has arrived. i mean it, whether you call it 1st republic or you cause silicon valley bank or you caught

signature bank or you call at credit suisse issues. the moment of, hey, these rates are starting to cause issues. i mean, you'd have to be pretty sleepy not to have noticed that moment. looks like it's probably arrived and americans are working. the us added over 5 100000 jobs just in january and over 300000. in february, the unemployment rate of 3.4 percent was the lowest since $969.00. and i'm, since americans are working, they're also spending money at a record pace as well. the consumer spending has stayed up, but there is some worry. some trends. one is that the rate of credit card debt has really short, sorry, shot up. and a lot of people got it is what they call by now pay later, which are kind of various lay away type programs to kind of like a credit card without a credit card. and so a lot of people are basically pre buying things that they're going to use over a while and that port 10, some coming weakness and consumer spending. right. and i think that's also tied to

inflation. so why don't we to make of all these conflicting signs of this economy? we all know that the world and our economy has really changed very dramatically many times, but particularly maybe since cove it since 2020. but we don't really know exactly how yet. and so every time we see a piece of data, we have to try to figure out if this is the new normal usual, or abnormal. that's usually how we look at things that cannot exist. the beginning of something new, the end of something old or something we haven't seen before. the confounding u. s. economy certainly giving up mixed signals everywhere. gabriel zoned or counting the cost. speak to greg swenson from london. he's a founding partner merchant bank. brig mccann to thank you so much for joining us. do you think the feds made the right choice this week to put up rights again, despite the term we'll see in the banks the last few weeks? definitely, i think the made the right move. i'm and fact if anything,

i hope they would, they would stick to their original plan of 50 basis points, you know, coming markets and breaking down inflation or breaking inflation is difficult and it's a difficult act. but, you know, this is, this is based on, you know, years of failed said policy, you know, distortions in the, in the monetary monetary market for a generation now. and so this isn't something that's going to, to be fixed overnight. you've had this monetary mania and, and resulting and inflation and due to flawed, fed policy over the last 10 plus years as well as really reckless spending over the last 3 years. and so i think that the fed has to stay the course. perhaps it was wise to to, you know, reduce the, the high from 50 to, to 25. but i and they signaled that there's probably just one more hike of $25.00 in the future. i think that might be a mistake because they really haven't broken the back inflation. i'm going to pick him up on that in

a 2nd. but 1st i want to talk more about the financial markets in the bank in crisis. because confidence is a massive issue, isn't it? i mean, it's all well and good saying that the financial stability of banks overall is pretty good. but if the markets don't believe that, that's an issue, right? of course, i mean it's a great point and you saw that with the, the basically the, the bank run on s t, b and, and signature back a few weeks ago. you know, once, once the deposit or start to panic and move their money elsewhere. you know, you, you have to address that. there is no doubt and look what happened with all those deposits. the big 5, know the top 5 banks are just getting bigger. and i think that's something that you know, has to be paid attention to. and, and i think i also think the, the san francisco fed was asleep at the wheel and not really paying attention to the banks in their system. notably, yes, the, be an easy to say that now, and there might be other ones out there. so it's, it's surely something that can't be ignored in the, in the fed did provide

a significant amount of liquidity in the last 2 weeks. in fact, they grew their balance sheet by about 320000000000. so it's almost like the return of quantitative easing. in spite of the fact that inflation is still running way too hot, you touched on it earlier, jerome power seemed to suggest in his statement, the softening on interest rates going into the future. do you think he's making the right call? i don't know what the evidence is for that. you know, if you look at what happened in, you know, in the february numbers, you know, the, the inflation, the 3 months moving average of course, inflation went from 2.9 to 4.7. so no, the trend is not good, and i think we're in the midst of a wage price spiral. and, and i also look at inflation here in the u. k. the numbers went up from $10.00 to $10.00, but it's becoming more of a service sector, wage price spiral, and you know, rent and hotels is up 12 percent. food prices went from 16.8 percent year over year and inflation in january to $18.00 in february. and you see similar numbers in the

us. so it doesn't. i think pals trying to show some optimism and hoping that inflation will, will come down to the 2 percent target this year. but i just don't see that in the data. and you also have continued hostility to the supply side. so, you know, as long as you keep over taxing and taking money out of the private sector into government was bailouts and, and, you know, subsidies and all kinds of government intervention. you know, i, i don't think that the, the supply side is going to improve. therefore, the only thing they have to do, the only tool in the kid is to reduce the demand side by raising rates. and that's unfortunate, but it's the only tool they have. so what is your prediction on? right? could we see rates go up to 5 percent, which is what we were talking about just about a month ago? absolutely, i mean, you'll see another $25.00 basis point. i could least that's what they're indicating

. now, i'm not sure that's enough. real rates are still negative and you have to get unemployment . unfortunately, the only real solution here is to go to unemployment, to 5 percent. and it's not something that anybody wants. but again, with that, with continued hostility to the private sector to the supply side, it's really the only option. so, you know, so far it hasn't really worked. but i think if you start to see, you know, there's some predictions and maybe $7000.00 job losses a month for the rest of the year. if you start to see some cracks in the job market, you'll see some cracks and inflation. you'll see, you'll see some, you know, some, some movement toward that 2 percent target, but i think the market as well as the fed are way too optimistic right now. and when, when you look at what's been going on with the bank and how that has led to tightening of lending and so on, the tightening, similar to what the interest rate hike does. and you add that to more hikes of interest rates. what impacts is that then end up having on the economy?

it does not take a straight to a recession. that's one of the risks, and i think recession is something that they anticipate they, they would of course hope for a soft landing and perhaps they will get it. but that might be wishful thinking, unfortunately, again, with, with hostility to the supply side. so you're not going to get increases and productivity and more goods and services delivered to the economy. so the only option is to reduce demand and that, so that very well might cause the recession. at this point, we don't know, but you know, paying people not to work is inflationary and, and paying people to produce more, reduces inflation. and that's something that, that, you know, we definitely won't see for at least another 2 years in the us with, with this administration. but i do think, you know, there's, there's light at the end of the tunnel. if there is a change in 2 years, where you might have a liberalization of the supply side in the form of,

of you know, tax reduction and deregulation and liberating the, the energy sector, which people tend to ignore because we've had some relief with lower energy prices even here, here in the u. k, you know, it went from a 50 percent year over year increase or 50.7 to 48.3 in february. that's helpful. but it's still an enormous burden on consumers and businesses, both in the u. s. and the u. k. i want to just go back to the u. s. banking system for a moment. we had some interesting comments from john yellen. recently, the us treasury secretary saying the regulators aren't looking to provide blanket deposits, insurance to stabilize the u. s. financial system, do you think they are doing enough to stabilize the banks? yes, i think there, i mean, look, there's whatever you want to call them. you know, 2 weeks ago with s t b and signature, their bailouts, their back stops. and their guarantees. and you also see huge subsidies in the u. s

. economy right now with the so called inflation reduction act, which is basically the green new deal. you know, that's, that's based favoring certain industries. but just creating so much liquidity. and that's really been the problem. the last 3 years, the massive increase in dollars years 40 percent more dollars in the market than there was 3 years ago. and you saw that that's really essentially what caused the problems that s v b. they weren't able to make loans fast enough, so they were buying, you know, treasuries and mortgages as you know. but that's not what bank should be doing. they should be making loans and creating productivity. and they just weren't able to do that. not, not at any fault of their own, but when, when your deposit go from, you know, 88000000000 to 188000000000 in a very short time. it's going to create these problems. and so these are all self inflicted wounds. and it's going to take some time to to, you know, reduce the quality in the system. greg, it was fascinating to talk to you greg swenson, founding partner mentioned thanks. brig mcadams speaking to me that from london we

could just keep talking about this one. fortunately out of town, yes. great to be here. thanks so much. o. south africa is suffering its worst ever power counts as the nation's electricity network fails to keep pace with demand. africa's most industrialized economy experienced more than twice as many power cops in 2022 than any all the year. will this year homes and businesses going without electricity for up to 12 hours a day. and the situation is set to get even worse. the electricity crisis is estimated to cost the economy as much as $50000000.00 a day. will the south african president sail, rama poser, has appointed a special minister of electricity to deal with the countries. energy crisis is also announced a national state of disaster to respond to the outages and the impact south africa generates nearly 85 percent of its energy from coal. but it's aging coal fired

power plants, a breaking down thousands of protesters called on the president to resign over the electricity crisis and lack of jobs over the last week. joining me now from johannesburg is andrew lane andrews, the senior partner at deloitte africa where he leads the energy resources and industrials practice in africa. thank you for joining the program. so to what extent has a south africa's electricity crisis impacted it's economy? the impact has been significant on the side for the economy. if you think about it, i mean it's, it's been tremendously detrimental to business in terms of reduce the ability to operate. i think for the big formal businesses where we have the capacity to provide alternative generation for themselves, it's been an enormous cost. and i think for small businesses who don't have that flexibility, it's had a tremendous impact in terms of their, their ability to stay open and continue serving customers. so i think the impact on

the economy has been huge. and i think you can see the in the price. yeah, the, the dollar divisions of the g d, p for costs and things like that. and i think addition to that, it creates a high level of discontent amongst the citizens of the country. and discontent is not a good thing when you have that sort of level of it's in the country. so yeah, i would say the impact has been significant. so what is the problem? what's behind the energy crisis? so there are a number of issues. i think the 1st issue is that, you know, there's been very little new generation build over the last couple of decades. you know, it was clear back in, in 997-2000 does have times that we were going to run out of energy and in 2007, which in fact we did. and you have very little or no major projects have been both time and we've, we've got the 2 recent ones cassie and the duplicate, as you know, been plagued with all sorts of programs. but those to these been very little see

additional build the existing features being run into the ground. i think that there's been a, a, an attitude of keep the lock total costs, which means that maintenance has not been what it should be so that the plant is not running at anywhere near the level that it's supposed to be running as and then i think on top of that, you've got, you know, in my opinion, a bit of a mix of, of incompetence and corruption which just make it difficult to on top of the problem. okay, well, we now have a new electricity minister that's just been appointed by the president. this will be the country's 1st ever electricity minister. what do you make of what you've heard so far? he hasn't been in the job very long. but what do you think of his appointment and also what he's done so well. so on his appointments i think that it's controversial,

i think in that they already 2 ministers accountable for the performance based on being public enterprises minister and the energy energy sources of energy resources minister. so putting a 3rd point of accountability into the mix, i don't think is going to create more accountability for a solution. i think it's going to further erode accountability and for the great opportunities for finger pointing and, and mutual planning. so that's, that's on that side. we haven't heard much from him specifically in terms of is plan but the direction of travel that i can sort of determine what, what i see from the outside is i think that there is hope, you know, i think that their strategy to improve the energy availability factor in is come, i think that's a, that's a good intent. i think it's going to be really, really hard to do. and that they should focus on a couple of power stations where they think they can get it right. and probably not

spend too much time on the, on the partition. so get towards the end of the lot. and i think the, the intent to bring more private sector investment in and more embedded generation to open up through the big windows for, for women. so now i think all of those good things and, and i think in time and, and given and assuming that we retain, you know, some level of, of, of, of 3 markets. operation of max does operate those, those entities that we could see the situation getting better in the medium term. so i think those things are all positive things to do. you've talked a bit about the aging infrastructure being a problem, can the government afford to replace some of that infrastructure? so again, my personal opinion on this is i would not spend too much time on power stations on the art end of life. i think that should rather be repurposed into,

into different technologies. i think the focused on the, on the existing feet should be on the process as we still have last lifted them. and yeah, that's not negative for call. i mean, the other silly is going to run until the, until the 20 seventy's. so, you know, i think that, you know, those are nervous about, about cold calling that you're coming to an end. i think there is, there is, there is still, there are still elements of the beat which i think a with investing it. but, but i wouldn't spend too much time on the stuff which is that which is at the end of life. where does all this leave south africa plans to shifts to renewable energy? the reality is that, i mean there are 2 realities. one is that there is, there is a, a narrative that says that renewables are bad for the cold industry and the cold industries, a big employer of people. so i think that's the one narrative. but i think of the other side, the generation technologies which can be brought in quickest of the renewable technologies. so i think that in, in reality what you're going to see,

it's not one or the other. it's not, you know, switch off calls switch on or near was i think we're going to see over a period of 50 years, a gradual reduction in, in call. and a gradual increase in renewables out of the call will go away for ever. and i think the facing arch wood can be done in a way that allows time for other industries and other sources of financial endeavor to to take the place of the existing college and her really good to get your analysis. andrew lane, senior partner, lloyd africa. thank you for your time, sir. thank you. 20 years since the invasion of iraq, opec 2nd largest oil producer, is still struggling to provide basic public services to its people like power and clean water. political instability, endemic corruption and security issues have all left the economy in flux, some a bunch of a reports. now, from basrah, the buttress famous italian bridge wasn't here 20 years ago.

neither was the main road that leads to busters international stadium. now the streets are peaceful, and there's relative political come in the city and across it all. how can we have achieved more than $8000000000.00 of foreign investment until february 2023? we are keen to achieve super major projects. this is all in coordination with the federal government. lots of projects were completed in bathroom related to infrastructure services, commercial and tours and sectors. this oil field is the much new, which means crazy in arabic, something that refers to the large amount of oil. there's found here in one location, an estimated 38000000000 barrels. the mission field produces 240000 barrels a day for iraq's economy. and production is planned to be expanded to 5 and a half 1000000 barrels per day. in our government says, despite obstacles like corruption, red tape and an unstable region invested the lining up. the mainly interested in

the countries abundant deposits of gas. but despite its large hydrocarbon resources, iraq imports a 3rd of the gas. it needs for its power stations. nearly $2000000000.00 worth comes from iran and on a stretch budget. that's the burden. it also spends an estimated $5000000000.00 the unimportant diesel in petrol for the last 20 years. infrastructure such as refineries have not been built to meet demand. the world bank ones, without structural reforms and economic diversification, it off dependence on oil leaves at one level to price volatility and global demand that's left it off currency struggling against the dollar. and that's not all. and there's no malia estimated by a parliamentary committee. grotton is estimated with $10000000.00 per year, around $600000000.00 were smuggled out of iraq overpass years. we had to fight against administration or corruption in financial corruption. money waste is a hindrance for many plans. and this is why there's no real development in the

rocky economy. despite that wealth, millions of iraqis struggled to get clean water every day. and every year, thousands of people fall due to waterborne diseases, drank drivers and climate change has increased risks of food shortages. in impoverished provinces, there aren't enough school buildings or teachers the lack of medical facilities, iraq, these who can afford to travel abroad for treatment. the poor have no other options as purchasing power roads due to inflation and continued electricity and water shortages. there is a risk of social in route in recent years, thousands of people have protested against fighting food prices and poverty experts . the kind of economic plans do not meet people need a promise infrastructure development for iraq. these, there's no real friday. all problems are being passed on from one government to another. each government does not complete previous economic plans. planning

ministry is just an ink on paper. all programs off economic development funding, poverty, or unemployment do not work because there's no single institutional system in place . 2 decades ago, the 1st battles of the iraq war were fought and bus for the city of a 1000000 people was besieged by mean, the british forces cluster munitions were used in the international coalition to band uranium weapons says u. k. forces use depleted uranium 20 years after the invasion, a lot has changed yet. this problem continues to remain the backbone. oil based economy. but still, the complains of the people are lack of jobs opportunities. interesting me at marlene and dave, the hash tag a j c t c. when you do or you can drop us an e mail counseling because the out of their adult net is addressed. but there's no fee online or out. is there a dot com flash in fee that will take you straight to our page, which has individual report links, an entire episodes for you to catch up on is,

is it for this edition of counting the cost? i'm mulling by you from the whole team. thanks for joining us. the news on our reserve is the ah ah al jazeera with oh,

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