do out crew, crucial saying if you want to take an action that is very important, you have to risk an absolutely, ah, the risks, everything. the world bank says 20 percent of people in afghanistan have access to the internet. many can't afford advice or a connection. and services are insecure. yeah, gonna jake is in there as yet. the major concern i have regarding our activity is power outages and internet connection. if one day power or the internet is disconnected in afghanistan, it would create a serious problem for us. the taliban government began imposing separate restrictions on bittman. after retaking power. falling the withdrawal of us forces in 2021 last december, girls were barred from attending secondary school and universities. the taliban justified the move, citing safety and islamic laws of gone. his son is the only country in the world

where women are banned from education. the un children's agency says more than a 1000000 girls have been deprived of education since the taliban to cobra. it's called on of con thoughts leaders to allow them to return to school until that happens. women like sophia intend to continue getting their education they want by logging in online. on the console. shareef al jazeera ah hello again. the headlines on al jazeera, the party of israel security minister as an urban givers, as prime minister benjamin netanyahu has agreed to delay plans to overhaul the legal system. the government has been under pressure to scrap the legislation. been given us as the proposal will be pushed to the next session of parliament latasha. the name has more from west to rosalyn. the ouster of the defense minister only added more fuel,

more momentum to the opposition movement. we are near the connecticut and as you can see, the protesters are arriving in droves. the country in a state of paralysis due to a general start strike in many sectors of society. it appears that there is growing momentum within the governing coalition to unite behind netanyahu and pause the judicial overthrow. economy minister is saying that we must not bring about the collapse of this right wing government at our own hands. but there are still doubt to national security minister and controversial figure in tomorrow. been kabir opposed to this, and there are indications that perhaps he will resign. now, un report has slammed the you for aiding and abetting libya. commit human rights violation against my grants. the report also says there is evidence that crimes against humanity were committed by both warring sites. scotlands governing parties elected hums or use f as

a leader have paved the way for him to become scotlands 1st minister, former health secretary wong, the s and p leadership raised with more than 52 percent of the votes. there's a public transport strike underway in germany. it's the biggest walk out in 30 years. air rail and bus services have all ground to a halt causing massive disruptions. those are the headlines counseling the cost is coming up next. but by oh, ward winning documentaries from around the world to 0. i . hello, melinda. 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 term oil across the financial sector. so has the fed made the right decision? also this week plunged into darkness lengthy black house, 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 for the federal reserve has raised interest rates again for the 9th time by a quarter of a percentage points in an attempt to rain 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 guest in just a moment. after this report from gabriel alexander 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 and economists to your 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 that 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. but 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, whether you call it 1st republic or you call silicon valley bank or you call it 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. 1969, 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's 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 into 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 consumers branding, 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. we can, alex, is this the beginning of something new? the end of something old or something we haven't seen before. confounding u. s. economy. certainly giving up mixed signals everywhere. gabriel is on auto or counting the cost. i speak to greg swenson from london. he is a founding partner at merchant bank brig mccann to thank you so much for joining us . do you think the fed made the right choice this week to put up rights again despite the term or we'll see in the banks the last few weeks? definitely, i think the made the right move. i'm 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, the 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 resulting in 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 hike from 50 to 25 but and they signaled that there's probably just one more hike of 25 in the future. i think that might be a mistake because they really haven't broken the back of inflation. i'm going to pick you 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. you saw that with the, the, basically the, the bank run on s d, b and, and signature back a few weeks ago. you know, once, once the depositors start to panic and move their money elsewhere. you know, you, you have to address that. there's 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 that the san francisco said was asleep at the wheel and not really paying attention to the banks in their system, notably, se, 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 statements. 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 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 the wage price spiral. and, and i also look at inflation here in the u. k. the numbers went up from 10 point one to 10.4. but you know, 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 tried 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 this, the supply side is going to improve. therefore, the only thing they have to do the only tool and the kit 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 rights could receive 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 basis point how you 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 get 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 of 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, right high does. and you add that to more hikes of interest rates. what impacts is that then end up having on the economy? i mean, it does not take a straight to a recession. that's one of the risks,

and i think recession is something that, 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 you're the only option is to reduce demand and that, so that very well might cause a 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 u. s. with, with this administration. but i do think, you know, there's, there's light at the end of the tunnel. if there's 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 us banking system for a moment. we had some interesting comments from john. it 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, they're bailouts, they're back stops. and they're guarantees. and you also see huge subsidies in the u. s. economy right now with the so called inflation reduction, 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 b, 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. i, south africa is suffering its worst ever power account says the nations electricity network fails to keep pace with demand africa's most industrialized economy experience more than twice as many power constant 2022 than any other year. well this year homes are businesses going without electricity for up to 12 hours a day on the situation is set to get even worse. electricity crisis is estimated to call the economy as much as $50000000.00 a day. well, the south african presidency, or i'm opposed that 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 the lloyd 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 as electricity crisis impacted it's economy? the impact has been significant on the side from 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 smaller businesses who don't have that flexibility. it's 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 p forecasts and things like that. and i think addition to that, it creates a high level of discontent amongst the citizens of the country. and yeah, just content 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 1997, 2000 does have times that we began 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, sacristy and deep duty that as you know, been plagued with all sorts of problems. but of those to these been very little see additional build the existing feet has been run into the ground. i think that

there's been a, a, an attitude of keep a lot total costs, which means that maintenance has not been what it should be. so that, so 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 fingerprinting 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 path stations are going towards end of the large. 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 when 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 stations on our 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 you know, that's not make it difficult. i mean, you know, the casino lee is going to run until the until 20 seventies. so, you know, i think that, you know, those are nervous about, about call the calling that you're coming to an end. i think there is, there is, there is still, there are still elements of the fleet, which i think with investing it but, but i wouldn't spend too much time on the stuff which is out of it, 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 industry is 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 call switch on renewables. 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 forever. 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 colonies 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 been jervey reports now from bad for 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 is relative. political come in the city and across iraq. 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 tourism. sectors this oil field is the mid noon, which means crazy in arabic, something that refers to the large amount of oil, or there's found here in one location, an estimated 38000000000 barrels. the mission field produces $240000.00 barrels a day for iraq's economy, and production is planned to be expanded to 5 and a half 1000000 barrels per day. it off, the 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 a burden. it also spends an estimated $5000000000.00 the unimportant diesel in petrol for the last 20 years. infrastructure such as refineries has not been built to meet demand. the world bank ones, without structural reforms and economic diversification iraq dependence on oil leaves at one level to price volatility and global demand. that's left it offs currency struggling against the dollar. and that's not all. and there's no malia an estimated by a parliamentary committee. grafton 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 and financial corruption. money waste is a hindrance for many plans. and this is why there's no real development in the iraqi 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 with 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 and in recent years, thousands of people have tested against writing 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 striding. 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 report and bus for the city of a 1000000 people was besieged by mainly british forces. cluster munitions were used in the international coalition to band uranium weapons says u k and us forces use depleted uranium. reggie is off to the invasion, a lot has changed yet. this problem continues to remain the backbone put off all these economy. but still, the complains of the people are a lack of jobs, opportunities, infrastructure, and the lack of attention from the people in progress, from a guy without the 0 bus. and that is our, so for this week, get in touch with us by treating me at modeling by indeed the hash tag a j c, z c. when you do all, you can drop us an e mail counseling. the cost to out is there a dot net is all addressed. but there's no fee on line i out is there a dot com slash syncing c that will take you straight to our page,

which has individual reports, links, an entire episodes for you to catch up on is, is it for the sedition off counting the cost? i'm molly, insight from the whole team. thanks for joining us. the news on al jazeera is ah, ah, and i imagine a mosque without pres. oh, without a family country, without people. people,

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