is part of that initiative seedlings grown here will be replanted in new santa l by occupy under the local hunters in the electrical. and we're actually transforming industrial forest back into natural for example, because the president wants a 60 percent of the new capital area to be green. but some are skeptical groups like green piece have criticized to the project. and you kindly look into how you must think about more than double up and just to korea de la will destroy more of the national norma. all the conservationists to raise concerns about the clearing of hundreds of factors if mangrove forest for infrastructure to service the new capital and the impact on some endemic species. but back at the, around the 10th century algerian t o says he can also see the positives. like opportunity law in the hands of the government as well to showing to us that government also care not only moving to escalate my band, but also seeing this is that the eagerness of the government let the conservation

be then as important as the development of our country, the challenge for the government is to prove that can reverse some of the environmental damage of the past and not create further destruction along the way. jessica washington 0 to 0 east cali mountain. ah. without a 0. these are all top stories. and these 26 people have been killed off to severe storms and tornadoes, hit 8 states in the u. s. on friday. that iraq, the capital of arkansas states, has been particularly badly affected, with more than 2000 homes and businesses damaged arkansas. governor sarah, how can be saunders says federal support is on the way tens of thousands of people have protested for 13th week against the israeli prime ministers plan traditional over whole police and tell us some flat water cannon to this 1st crown blocking the

main highways. but doing that from y'all, he says he won't files when's national pressure to abandon his plans off to putting them on pools. many see the plan reform, the threat to democracy in the country is ready. forces have shot dead, a palestinian man, north of hebron in the occupied west bank. if a soldiers opened fire after the man rammed his car into israeli troops and the entrance to the town of bates mar. 3 soldiers were injured to them seriously. and earlier a palestinian man was shot dead by israeli security for the 1000000 near the l. x. and most compound accused the 26 year old of grabbing an officer's gun. when to say he was trying to stop them harassing a woman on her way to the compound media. say he was a doctor. ukraine has criticized russia's takeover of the rotating presidency of the un security council for a month. russia's president vladimir putin as wanted for war crimes by the international criminal court. ukraine have called it a bad april 1st joke and

a slap in the face for the ancestral community. i think the clergyman, with the ukranian orthodox church, has been placed on the house arrest for 2 months, also being accused of condoning russia invasion metropolitan pavel have called the charges politically driven ahead of the most revered monastery in the country and resisted government attempts to evict him and other monks from the sites. those are your headlines. i'll be back with more news here on al jazeera. after counting the cost, stay with from the al serra london girl consented to people in thoughtful conversation with no haste and no limitation. what is even moored and p me that mouth is system innovation? system, the design and system transformation? part one of human rights activists, kimmie, nighty, and environmentally. when an electric, i lived as you have with a fossil fuel era, my entire life. and i'm looking for a graceful transition out of it. studio

b unseat date on out his era. ah, with . and i'm the cloud. this is counter that calls on al jazeera. we'll look at the, well, the business and economics this week, russia is increasingly turning to chime as you on, as it's foreign currency of choice. and moscow supports the use of the u on, in trade with other countries, could that threaten the u. s. dollar. also this way ukraine winds a d i. m f, 's 1st loan to a country at war. why did the international monetary fund change its rules to lend the nation and what all the terms and conditions for cave and the i m f has agreed to inject millions of dollars into shoreline? because economy is it enough to help the island nation rate in its debt?

in canton, the government revive economic growth. ah. so since being shot out of much of the global financial system, russia has sought alternatives to soften the impact to western sanctions. is tend to china for an economic lifeline and trade between the 2 countries. hence a record of a 190000000000 dollars last year. much of those payments were made in chinese and russian currencies. the 2 biggest geopolitical rivals of the u. s. 12, to balance the dominance of the dollar worldwide, and russia is increasingly embracing the u on, even before the war, rushes central bank tried reducing the country's dependence on western currencies. but the invasion has further accelerated those efforts. in the 3rd quarter of 2020 to foreign currency and the russian banking system fell to an all time low, 15 percent. and in the past year,

the share of the dollar and the euro transactions on the russian market has declined. meanwhile, due on over the us dollar as the most traded currency on the moscow exchange last month with the market share of close to 40 percent of trading volume or russians president is making efforts to get other countries to pay for trade. in chinese currency, austria's meeting with the chinese president choosing pink in moscow more than a week ago. for me, putin said we support the use of chinese won in the payments between russia and the countries of asia, africa, and latin america. the russian leader also expressed confidence that such forms of payments will be developed between russian partners and their colleagues. in 3rd countries. the meeting between she and putin was meant to cement that no limits partnership which was announced last year. and the 2 leaders have agreed to expand the economic ties. china is already a major bar, discounted russian oil and gas. it's imports of russian coal such 20 percent more

than 68000000 tons. russia has also been ramping up in ports of chinese goods, including machinery, electronics, based metal vehicles, ships and aircraft. well, the u. s. dolah has dominated global trade and capital flows for decades. but it sharon global central bank reserves. it's dropped to less than 60 percent from roughly 70 percent 20 years ago. the euro share has gone up slightly since since launch more than 2 decades ago, from 18 percent to just under 20 percent. and while the u on is being widely used, it constitutes less than 3 percent of global currency reserves. and china attempts to expand the currencies international role. hands face ro, blogs, will dig more into that with, i guess. now, joining us from london is maximilian has to the fellow at the foreign policy research institute and political risk consultant max, welcome to the program. first up in your view, how significant is this shift this russian adoption of the one?

thank you for having me. i think the russians adoption of the one is not really a story about you want to strengthen, certainly not a story about the one replacing or immediately challenging the dollars, the key global reserve and more importantly, global trade currency. this is a story about russia's weakness and the fact that russia has huge issues trading the dollar. what the western sanctions regime mean? is there any hard currency that crosses border, physically or additionally, with russia automatically has discount to that currency abroad? how large that is, the key effort of sanctions authorities in russia tries to resistance. but because of that, russia has shifted to trading in the wan, but even then it's still not quite as much of a share brushing exports as dollar trade is still today for 14 months on from the beginning of the war. right. and that's one of the risks associated with it, especially bear in mind and you know, china's propensity to sudden evaluations. certainly that is one risk. the other

issue is that there are still capital controls in china and how freely russia can move change. you want to hold these into other currencies and shout as well. we saw this actually in the aftermath of putin and she is summit in moscow last week, the kremlin, formally requested the charter use its restrictions on rent, be trading, and. ready change ability so that it could denominate more of its trade with africa in the currency. and beijing so far has just not responded to that request. and how wide spread is if you wanna use within russia, russian, people and businesses encouraged to use. well, until last february was very rarely use the russian central bank to ship some of its holdings over the preceding 8 years since the 1st and vanity credit, 2014 into the new one. but it hadn't really been a major instrument of trade savings or credit financing. now, so the russians open up some savings products in the u on we've seen trade,

obviously with china, with some other countries increased pretty substantially. but for me, which really isn't china still hasn't oper, rush a long term financing, even with the one. so the credit market there is still really incredibly under developed and tiny iota, what the dollar credit market once was the max you were talking about the increase the ukraine war and what's happened with the sanctions and so forth. and in making this happen, to what degree will this, this pivot make a difference to the russian economy? well, you know, i think it really puts russia in a position where it is dependent on china or tray. russia actually runs a train or bus with china on like, you know, western countries. but the way to think about this in my view is not really from a position of strength. but really that china is happy to say, well, we'll take as many russian commodities, some of which we now get a discount as a result of sanctions on the oil, in particular, of the discounts are in this grade, is there are russian seaborne trade oil for the rest of that comes in,

so russia's essentially become a commodity supplier state to china. chinese exports, you know, to russia have increased somewhat. but the key thing is that the regime was particularly material defense supplies and bands technology has not yet been forthcoming. so, you know, i think it's really representative of the balance of power in that relationship. and what about putin encouraging other countries in asia and africa and latin america to use or go on? well, has actually criticized what he calls the dollar system for the last 20 years and what is known as the exorbitant privilege of us dollars additional, its ability to borrow in deficits. but a geopolitical basis also gives us significant political strength through the extra territoriality of its sanctions regime and put in the longest shape against this and wants to push it to have a move away from it. but the rule is not really

a currency that is attractive for anyone to serve as an alternative. so he's willing to promote the chinese one. but this is rhetoric we've heard for 20 years. and as you mentioned in the beginning, although the dollar share global reserves is down a little bit over the last 20 years, it's actually come back up a little bit. last few years is still by far the key trade currency. and i am very much of the new, the dollar has money is not under immediate threat. you know, we found ourselves in an economic war between the western russia and the west weapon read through the dollars system. there is far larger, far more powerful and makes that an unbalanced conflict and naturally check against that because he wants to take on that order as part of this conflict. can you claim the dollar not under immediate threat, you say, but perhaps down the line, all the storm clouds? well, i think that, you know, china as a 20 or 30 year plan to really replace the dollar,

or at least to put china as the key note in the global, international economic order. you know, what's very interesting is, you know, from my view of, i'm very much a russian specialist background. russia has long chance to get these things. but the u. s. largely has been unaware of some of the geopolitical strengths of the dollar and the history of how it came to be. so powerful is really a series of u. s. policy mistakes and inadvertently, facts west china seems to have a very coordinated and driven long term strategy. so i don't want to say that is not a risk, but i think, you know, for china long term effort. and my view is one of the issues with this, you know, russian, chinese and balance and why we haven't seen the credit aspect of it so far because that's what most strictly sanctioned by the west is a for now. china. so she's russia's efforts as more of a threat to its agenda that does an opportunity to advance that may change at some point. i think that's a key question around the economic aspects of this global conflict. but for now,

i think, you know, china strategy really is not one of the race in russia, as apartment there and more be hesitant because it has this much more long term strategy. and it's happy with the order. it just wants to be number one, whereas russia effectively wants to undermine are right. and as far as china is concerned, just to wrap it up and long term strategy for sure. but what kind of robots are in the way of it? expanding its currency? well, you know, the check capital controls that are still in place on the chinese you want to really by far the key one until that happens. ready chinese currency won't be seen as a means of savings and assets internationally, or is trade because people want to get caught in that, you know, despite there being some elsewhere in recent years. we see this every time this year political crisis at the end of the dollar system. you know, they're still very few people internationally are willing to get paid in you on. whereas u. s. dollar bills are usually accepted for pretty much everywhere you from

a fish market in russia to a traders in hong kong, regardless of the level of geopolitical tensions. max is great to get your perspective, appreciate that. thanks a lot. thank you for having me. ah, well, russia pits the china, you create appeal to international aid to keep the country running. the economy shrank by around 3rd last year. it's budget deficit has risen to $30000000000.00 and to rebuild the water nation. well, that would cost billions of dollars or, but his estimated less than half of the money pledged by the west has reach keith. the nation is now set to receive a loan from the international monetary fund. and that is a 1st for country war. the m f is agreed on a $15600000000.00 funding package to ukraine. it's expected to be approved in the coming weeks. the 4 year funding deal is also one of the largest financial packages . keith has received since that russia's invasion last year. it will help you crane

close its massive budget deficit and support his bid for european union membership a status on joining us for stock. i'm is toby on becca. he's the director of the stock. i'm institute of transition economics. also a board member of the keys school of economics toby and welcome to the show at so the have has not granted loans to countries that war its entire history. why does it change the rules now? do you think? i think these are extraordinary circumstances. that's the very short answer to this . if we remember, the math was set up after the 2nd world war when we had all the difficulties in the war world back then. and this now is the 1st large scale war in europe, when the aggressions from russia to your credit. and so, you know, these are extraordinary circumstances and i think we have to look at it from, from this perspective, shaw, that's why this particular war i'm in the boys,

unfortunately, over the years of nice. why wouldn't they support those to those countries to? yeah, i think, yeah, i think there are different aspects of this, of course, one is of course that the math is political institution in some ways we have member countries that need to think about how they want to support countries that have difficulties. and one important thing region here is of course, that ukraine has very strong and powerful friends at the board of the mass control . so large share of devoting of the i m f board of course like to come to your opinion in the u. s. department countries that have supported ukraine now over this last year or so. so this figure of $15600000000.00. how will it be distributed and how would it be managed? would it be all for the rebuild? no, i mean there are different phases of this program. the 1st one is of course, to make sure that the country can deal with its economy, challenges in the short run, you know,

plugging the hole in the budget that you mention, and making sure that your claim does not need to print money itself to finance its big deficits of this is more in the short drum step illustration of the macroeconomic situation and then going forward. it will also be part of the reconstruction process, but we're not there yet. as you know. yeah, i mean, while the war goes on is just like trying to stem a flooding. dam is never ultimately the country needs the war to end to rebuild its economy. yeah, absolutely. and it needs the continued support of countries from the european union and from the u. s, canada, japan, et cetera. and what about the conditions of this funding? tell us about those? well, i mean, all of the i m f programs have the idea that countries have to just policy today will be able to repay the, the i m f at some future day. and there's always this idea that money should be

spent in a way that supports sustainable growth and all sorts of other different dimensions of the economy. and this is no exception in the so, you know, there will be discussions about besides so budget deficits, how you run monetary policy. and then also the institutional reform sling to independence of central bank legal system, etc. which is, you know, standard things in the math program, right? a standard, but there's not a standard situation. ukraine as a country, it was kind of on a commitments when it's at war in this way. well, i mean, there's much more uncertainty to this program than standard i m f programs of course. but i think if we connect back to the idea that this is based on the fact that the import, the powers that are part of the i, m f is actually agreeing to this program. i also think of this as a signal that they will commit their own funding and help and assistance in

different ways to make sure this is a sustainable lineup program. so basically what, what this means is that i think this is a signal that the u. s. and other parts of ukraine are serious about their commitment to, to help you to create for as long as it takes, basically, a lot of money that should have gone to the crating government that has not reached the projects it, it was meant to go to lot of corruption. how do we, how are we sure that that won't happen here and how should that be fought? there has been a lot of progress, of course, in terms of dealing with corruption, a lot of the different parts of ukrainians, society and external partners have a lot of focus on corruption, of course, as we know. and this is one of the reasons that the 3 sent the scandals with corruption has come to the surface site. in some ways, this is a pretty good sign that now people and institutions take this very seriously in ukraine. it doesn't mean that it goes away overnight,

but it will continue to be one of the top priorities to monitor and make sure that money is not going away in this way in the future. of course, a final question to you beyond going forward, do you think ukraine will get as much funding for reconstruction and recovery as it did to trying assistance more time economy? well, i think it's going to need even more support in the future of course. but there, it's also the issue of rush up, paying reparations for the damages has done to ukraine. most of us have been discussed, pass about 300000000000 or so of russian assets are frozen in western institutions . so you know that it's also going to be part of the discussion when it comes to funding the reconstruction of ukraine. but then of course, is going to also need private sector investments bilateral donors and everyone else to help out with the reconstruction in the future. to be on back,

i'd great to get your analysis. thanks very much, nate. thank you. queues for fuel and now a thing of the past, food shortages, reduced and cooking gas available, again, straight line because worst economic crisis in decades is showing signs of improvement. but the island nation is struggling to find the funds to important necessities repay more than $6000000000.00 every year until 2029. the government has secured and $3000000000.00 bailout for the international monetary fund. the loan comes nearly a year after tough to go see asians between the i m f. sure lanka and its creditors . china has agreed to supports relying cars, debt restructuring, which was crucial to secure the package that followed similar arrangements by other creditors, including india and japan. the government is also imposed unpopular measures to meet the i m. s. requirements including raising taxes, utility prices and cutting subsidies on fuel and electricity. or joining us from

a colombo and sri lanka, child, i'm seeing, he's the product, head of macro economic and the math research at frontier research. i welcome to the program. so this still many, $3000000000.00, but it enables another $7000000000.00. how useful this is going to be for sure lanka. the deal is spending the money that comes in the money that comes in it. so right now, it's not something that's going to be a game changer. why he's a game changer has said the future for sure lanka is that this is essentially the next spot in the already could all be restructuring the country over the coming part of the country. so this allows you to move forward on some further in the denominator, you cut off maybe development objects of the world back to finance on those if and move forward and also allows us to move forward with the restructuring. so starting that process is what this i have a program beginning and really crystallizes. and of course the road ahead, but the long road is now able to stuff that we got in the back. so we should be

looking more than meet him to long term as far as that's concerned, very much, i mean the, the factors or the reforms needed, they can always ultimate as needed to take up to the beginning long term really have to stop. now of course allows us to, of the growth is and move forward. yeah, i was going to say because the conditions mean that you have to act now to have the light in the 1st place. so immediately will it help shore up the economy. so or the last 6 months or so, a lot of the orac shortages are in the countries that started out. and at the start the piano primarily as a result of the economies contraction. the deb putting down demand that has meant that some significant amount of those products on it. i think the margin on that side things are looking they don't already. this does allow us now to, for example, no reforms is required for the state or the rises reforms that are required on the energy for us to move forward with that. so this is very much a critical part of wallet,

but it's important justifies it because he's been through a lot of austerity as it is. it's just the way it goes with these kinds of deals that you have to go through. morris dorothy become a country cope with that. what we see more protests, it's not catering itself that requires the fact that the re lock as economy had taken back to a very unsustainable level. and then from that point, if you are to recover, you need to forget the typing up as you need to reverse some of those policies. and once you've taken those on of a consumption driven based typing dose, that does end up being really for one thing that has the high taxes, especially on the progressive and for high come under the orders about that there. and discussions on how in the future that might change. so there will be opposition, some of the form to specify those that are directly affected. but in terms of what directly effects brings up, the majority of the country was the one thing that helps you the fact that there's actually a minimum spend require deny me a program for social fest with the company is required to spend

a percentage of gdp on social, but of course the one that really has to do with the fact that the equity fuel subsidies, everyone and the tires have been made culture back of the problem wasn't any other option other than that because of the absolute bad in the to. so we're dealing with that the alternative grubby bus, but the fact that that is the case of the payment. so that part of it remains. recently. some prices have started to come down as the currency started, just because students will go below. prices come down as a hopefully that kind of actually can help me to get some of the pain on the, especially on the work in the shop, the need to drive up exports. how does the government plans do that? so, i mean, she's got all these water to drive up export and they've had different different strategy and different different plans for me. from my perspective, i think it's about getting any barriers all the way and creating an environment that is more conducive to expand for an export services. so that's what look look

like structure the font that will look like proving around, getting rid of regulation over regulation, and thus allow for the currency to reflect market conditions would also be one of the sooner because economy has traditional digital last 1520 years because the controllers has service for export this at this overall cheating g could help create a better but only time how much, how much business is it really suffered over the last few years, especially in the past year and the poor to will money be directed in that direction especially on the i think the and that said, i think like i said that either minimum required for those. and that is to do the nominal terms. it will be see mean an increase in the market will be spent in that country better. also seen some of the factors that lead to the deepest contraction that are very long reversing the interest rates are starting to lock up currency

also the some sort of like i said, these factors just mean that we're directly does, for example, with indirect the 10th of the really can we can bottom and improving. does it create a situation where a lot of the ground do feel less and less made more involved and moving forward? how would you see, i feel like as economy in the company as time, as long as re longer can speak to this overall the trajectory. i think that he's pause for a lot of optimism on it because having to stick to the requirement that is the little bit of the difficult part of the company tradition in the sticking to these kinds of back us. you'd like us talking this, this time from a very, very deep contraction. that no money to the, you know, financial space to reboot, got previously could revise and made 2 years for the x to be. so now you supervise, you feed back the me get to the next month or so. so hopefully that prevents reversal on but on,

on that basis i am optimistic but cost us up to see about the future of the country dumps again, thank you. so we have all show for this week. if you'd like to comment on anything you've seen, you can tweak me o'clock, i'll just please use the hash tag a j c t c. i'll just drop us an e mail counting the cost at al jazeera dot net is our address. there's probably more for you online that's al jazeera dot com, forward slash c t c. and that'll take you straight to our page, which is individual reports, links and taught episodes to catch up for that set for this edition of counting the cost on the clock thing, the whole team, thanks for joining us. the news on al jazeera is coming ah ah,

and a, it's a $1000000000.00 money, no drink operation to cold. marcia is bigger than the company with financial institutions, regulators and governments complicit about ways altering with it. is it right? i've described that in a 4 part series. algio 0 is investigative unit because under cover in southern africa, pittsburgh, we can fill the 90 percent, who doesn't? well, it's to the following. it's perfectly brandon, good part to on al jazeera, unflinching questions is war with lawanda, imminent rigorous debate. people who are dying because of lack of medical treatment . black labs don't really matter in the police world. join me, mark them on hill upfront, went out to 0. ah.