there are too few mountains for us we it's but people are all gathering in the same places unfortunately tensions are unlikely to result by themselves this summer a record number of visitors is expected. news that's all for now we'll have more headlines at the top of the hour coming up next and now on with the business news. the key to good. old is. that matter.

to your ear is actually on fire. from the international monetary fund a stark warning the covert 19 pandemic has pushed international debt to alarming levels several countries are in danger of defaulting. and a plan to rebuild the port of beirut faces many hurdles we speak to one german company involved in the project. this is the w. business i'm joined now on in berlin happy you can join us the international monetary fund has warned that the covert 19 pandemic has pushed international debt

to levels that could trigger a major crisis especially low income countries are at risk of default due to lower fiscal revenues and much higher health care. air and social expenses last year alone 6 countries default it most of them were in latin america and included argentina billie's ecuador and surinam in the middle east lebanon on and in africa zomby off. the i.m.f. fears this year could see even more countries on able to repay their creditors some of the most precarious sovereign debt is from african nations angola the republic of congo ethiopia the the gambia beak. maldives and turkmenistan also have a high probability of debt distress. crystal gave up ahead of the international monetary fund urged member countries to offer debt relief to ailing countries now johnson who is the c.e.o. of calorie asset management he joins us from lagos welcome johnson now let's start

with that you call for debt relief from the i.m.f. some member countries a huge multilateral effort to be sure is it even possible. yes it is possible because as it stands today in number of african countries that number it or read a book on trees having difficulties with financing a fiscal position and a lot of them out of the highly indebted to multilateral and agencies so even. legal granted about the minimum debt some relief should be granted to them and i am at least are going about that that pushing that the saudis grants should be extended to the polish conscious and it won't so that it minimally be able to meet their obligations otherwise they are going to default as it stands today minute it had a very precarious fiscal position i was proud to give it 19 and given that he has worsened his editions minute amount able to ask much they've been used and they

used to have and then accurately pointed out we also see it creates india call it this but to particularly would it need to meet. with 19 so clearly many african countries and many poor countries where some level of debt relief right but it would require all countries being on the same page here now china of course is the largest single langar to low income countries is china willing to renegotiate loans or are there concerns that they would perhaps see some assets from their betters. well i think it's an interest i've tended to negotiate somewhat is that. my charity is really do lose possibly interest payments i'll grant some with us on interest payments. that if tenet goes ahead with foreclosure goes on. the it will be a fractured relationship with africa antenna has been pushing to have

a strong relationship with africa which is what it is why they've adopted the approach of use of debt and use our infrastructure that supports so you tend i should be very hash had on those african countries at a time when somebody's telling they have actually extraneous or is a genius then damie end up destroyed or listen to to beautify to bust into the 20 years so in the interest of good relations china might be called upon but you know it's not just countries that language about private creditors are they likely to accept that restructuring. i see stands today if you look at the country leg zambia and a couple of what a country that have had china india sweet payment of interest obligations on my place by repayments when it became do you did a private tell you last source who is willing to enter into some level of reality

comment or destruction of those loans i said has to do to private sector lend us do not have as much leverage as several linda us because foreclosure last it's by privacy it's all in the us it's more cumbersome that for us it's by summer in lend us on listed as i say it's outside the nationalities are the boundaries of the. contras so easy and they are going to go to the legal process of oculus it so prevalent as also in situations like these. is not a very strong pollution actually seized that this was repeated outside when do you so easy i think one's multi-lateral going to just like i remember what bank up wishing for this i want to believe that but some are in to lend us and privately in us will see the wisdom in allowing africa going to switch to the side that they be impatient to pay to. extend it with extended my charity's johnson show who is

the c.e.o. of calgary asset management thank you very much. repeat your the united states has blacklisted 7 chinese companies it accuses of building super computers for the military the move means that american firms will not be allowed to export technology to the companies without approval it's the latest development in a growing spat between washington and beijing over technology and security supercomputers can be used to develop weapons by simulating nuclear explosions and the trajectory of high speed missiles. on friday german corporate representatives unveiled their plans for the reconstruction of the beirut port it's still unclear who will be financing the project the reconstruction price tag is estimated at over $7000000000.00 euros a massive explosion destroyed the port last august leading the government to resign but prime minister designate saad hariri has been unable to form a new government to oversee the construction. $200.00 people died and thousands

were injured last year after a warehouse storing highly combustible chemicals exploded at lebanon's main seaport . waves from the blast at beirut's port flattened large parts of the lebanese capital leaving a quarter of a 1000000 people homeless the disaster was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history it sunk the country into its worst economic and political crisis since the end of its 15 years total war in 1990. s. to mits put the economic damage done to beirut but around $15000000000.00. rebuilding the poor to self is a big deal the blast left a crater 140 meters in diameter a huge portion of the pool was obliterated leaving up 280-0000 tons of construction and demolition waste in beirut. then there's the environmental fallout the

explosion release toxic chemicals into the atmosphere the courts buildings the land and the city. in political terms rebuilding poses a speech challenge for a bankrupt country modern corruption lebanon's entire cabinet resigned after the blast but have still not been replaced its people have all but lost faith in their politicians. is a bound any aid may be swindled away after successive governments piled up debt following the war with little to show for it but rebuilding beirut on the scale it needs can happen without politics and any plan to do so would have to find a way to work with both. lars greiner of p.c. have port consulting joins us now he's currently in beirut lars good to have you back on the show now this is a proposal so not yet set in stone how realistic is it that you'll be awarded this project to rebuild the port of beirut. how

it's great to be back with you again. i'm quite optimistic about it but at the end of the day the important thing is the governance relating to that to the port needs to be in place 1st the will is certainly there we've had some very encouraging hard but encouraging discussions over the last week but right now it really is up to things to move forward. as you mentioned the political situation there in lebanon and of course we don't have funding yet getting funding say from the european investment bank is largely contingent on political stability not easy at the moment tell us a bit about how you're dealing with these challenges. indeed you're absolutely right it is the biggest single bit biggest challenges the political and the governance landscape on the ground we have had a lot of interest from from there is funding private as well as institutional

organizations there's very little we can really do about it we'd like to move ahead with the project we believe it's a good project but we're certainly not going to move it move ahead without the support of the funding institutions but also of the german government. we've been and the european union we've been very they've given us they've got us good access and i think that we're hoping that we can continue the dialogues and that we'll start to see some kind of motivation we've had excellent discussions with various parties on the ground here the government government officials port of the shoals civil society and i think there's a genuine desire from everyone the feedback we would initially had from the from the meeting quote from the press conference has been extremely positive people want to move ahead and i'm personally hoping that that gives the final motivation to actually for something to actually start to allow us to at least start the next steps this is not a short term project this is a long term project and we can take into bite sized pieces bite sized pieces but we

do need to see the development moving in in the same way in the same way and we can always move it in small pieces following that's right now we're waiting for the next movement forward on the one hand everyone sees a need for building a port everybody wants this part on the other hand it's contingent upon fixing deeply entrenched problems like public finance like rooting out corruption doesn't that sort of thing makes it difficult doesn't that make it difficult to assign a timeline to this. absolutely without question the good thing with it is that we have a lot of planning still to do. and we can move ahead with the planning without risk of developing anything further. always contingent on these reforms taking place this is not a this is not a quick fix this is not a. development plan we're talking a 15 to 20 year your development plan with the 1st real developments taking place

or construction taking place only in 4 to 5 years in the meantime there's a lot of optimization we can do but it is all contingent on developments happening so we will simply do what we can as we can as structures stopped to come in place lars griner of hamburg port consulting there thank you very much he's joined us from beirut a top german lawmaker has rejected tesla's claim that the country's peer rocker see a slowing down innovation the u.s. electric car maker says administrative complications are delaying the construction of its new factory outside berlin that germany is at risk of missing its climate targets but in an interview with business daily handles conservative lawmaker atomosphere rice said he knew of no other project where so much had been done to get clearance quickly. amazon warehouse workers in the u.s. state of alabama have voted against forming

a union and union leaders were hoping the election would lead to a new era of worker activism many southern states including alabama have passed so-called right to work laws that curtail unions abilities to mandate jews and other measures. thanks for watching. how does a virus spread. why do we panic and when we'll all. just 3 of the topics covered weekly. if you would like and the information on the coronavirus or any other science topic you should really check out our talk out if you get it wherever you get your podcast you can also find us at.

what secrets lie behind. discover new adventures in 360 degree. and explore the world heritage sites. world heritage 360 kidnapped now. you're watching news asia coming up today we take a closer look at myanmar's crisis through its neighbor india what it's doing with refugees escaping that myanmar military along its borders and what exiles already in india have to say. plus we'll find out why the covert pandemic actually improved life for this fisherman and why researchers are taking notice.