Exploded as soon as this news came about this potential vaccine by pfizer traders just jumped in head 1st into this market and weve really seen the dow it really record levels now in the markets been open about 90 minutes the main sectors that are benefiting the most travel Leisure Hospitality restaurants all things that have really suffered a lot in the last 99 to 12 months president elect joe biden has announced his transitional covert 19 team he says tackling the pandemic will be one of his 4 big priorities as the u. S. Continues to report a record daily number of infections. A new round of talks on libya is underway in the tunisian capital 75. 00 libyan representatives have been invited symbolizing the 75th anniversary of the United Nations which is leading the discussions both sides announced a permanent cease fire which has largely held. Officials in the disputed region of nagornokarabakh say the key city of shoes has been taken by Azerbaijani Forces those claims had initially been denied a long line of traffic was seen on the outskirts of the regional capital still panic as thousands of armenians tried to escape the fighting in the ivory coast president ouattara has been officially reelected after the Constitutional Court indorsed the results of octobers election opposition members have disputed what theyre running for a 3rd term more than 30 people were killed in the postelection violence in the streets of southern florida flooded as storm makes its way through the state made landfall in the u. S. Earlier monday coronavirus testing sites and Public Transportation had been shut down waiting to hear from president elect joe biden but in the meantime its counting the cost. Either give it al this is counting the cost on aljazeera go look at the world of business and economics this week the end of austerity the ideology of collective punishment decimating the weakest in society for the economic mismanagement and crimes of the rich and powerful may be consigned to history. And while the International Monetary fund warns of a rise in inequality due to the pandemic one leading charity says the lender of last resort is still dishing out loans that require the countries to hack back at Public Services. Before politics despite u. S. And european opposition germany pushes ahead with a gas pipeline that cement its dependence on russia but also increases germanys dominance of the rest of europe. On a countrys finances are in a mess and the lender of last resort needs to step in a bailout comes with conditions mostly draconian austerity measures but governments have also been known to implement them for ideological reasons the International Monetary fund has recognized that maybe austerity is not the best course of action and it can in fact make matters worse with a pandemic the i. M. F. Now says governments should spend spend spend and not worry about the finances until a recovery is embedded some would say the death of austerity should not be mourned why well lets take a look at a few case studies for. Recent history under the i. M. F. European central bank and European Union bail out greece had to take an axe to public spending the people of greece paid a heavy price seeing an increase in Child Mortality its Health Care Spending was slashed from almost 10 percent to 2008 to 8 percent in 2017 the troika had wanted spending to fall to 6 percent the Unemployment Rate remains shockingly high it 17 percent last year and the country has yet to pay off its debts 21 i. M. F. Administered bailouts have done little to spark team is economy into life for the past 3 years the economy has been in recession and the pandemic will take another huge bite out of the country economy minister Martin Boozman has blamed the i. M. F. Austerity measures for the credit crisis but argentina has managed to convince creditors to restructure 65000000000. 00 of debt and is now in talks with the i. M. F. About its 44000000000. 00 loan and after 141000000000. 00 pounds bailout of the banks in 20082 years later persons then finance minister George Osborne introduced austerity measures to reduce the budget deficit the result was debt almost doubled to 1. 00 trillion dollars growth was anemic and the economy was 130000000000. 00 smaller a decade later more than 4000000. 00 children thats one in 4 lived in poverty and more than 1000000 people were forced to use food banks. Now there is a caveat the end of austerity is mainly for advanced economies her control of their own currencies and can raise money and the i. M. F. Believe such countries should be able to stabilize their finances by the middle of the decade well joining me now via skype from london is Phillip Blond a political thing can and you can theologian and director of the think tank rez publica thank you for your time great to talk to you this is interesting advice isnt it from the i. M. F. The advice to spend to save lives and to keep the economy going but that is a huge change in contrast from the financial crisis in 2008 isnt it yeah it reminds me of john ruskins whos very strange most. Critical. Of the arent you so great and he said there is no where out lines. I think thats true. The fundamental right of all the economy if you will is to allow life to flourish but if there is no there is no way out then what is the last hurrah your fathers. Choice is really saying the calling the old saying lives have the wealth the country. Banks protected our economy all those that have best protected human life so when they need to come to asia bold its not just a bill or a factory and countries like china japan south korea i well come from words in the intro. With our every corner of the great wall this brown bible from the good side what im striving for the i. M. F. Is already to understand. The. 5 whole developing. That should this you austerity as a response to the carotid artery that seems like a nice sensible is. The say and really what i think they should be doing and i suspect they all sankey creating problems to allow them to call if we need to spend as well because its. Investing is. Creating this in gratian for the people to stay not down with just the approach. To preventing viral spread that we say. Save the economy something were going to talk to the interim director of Oxfam International about a little later in the program but i want to come back to this advice for advanced economies at least to spend spend spend this is just mean that were going to see an increase in debt and deficits we just 12 months ago would have been think about. Well you know there are different ways you i think create stat mole if you are you a cut of a process all along the supply chain so you can just contract things economists. Call the fishes that track things things that say by that youll youll back. Seeing creasing if youre the fabless to. Confirm that im driving the birds spending route is a good instructor so essentially he thinks that because essentially the color made already the states of gravity how i think about bringing back not just throwing in a rope and experiences on. The station to supply chains because essentially men stefansson probably means have safety that so and thats they support people in jobs through expending that have to support people answer through the welfare system and we know over the mountains of data that. People find it very very hard the longer theyre in routes assistance the farms back into the labor market back evaporating called life support so that theres enough business cooperatives to bounce back as quickly as you found and i think i think back really imperative but if you offend your populated should the laboratory are employed with sobriety thats essentially diminishes the possibility for recovery further down the road so we think in this sense i think your actually spending money for a grand race assassinates lets talk about the u. K. For a minute it was also introduced austerity for what critics to made with purely ideological reasons. To sort of shrink the state and cut Public Services now a decade on you know the number of people using food banks has risen to 1200000 according to the Trussell Trust i mean so what does that say is it just the vulnerable then who suffer whats interesting in a developed this is reference rate its the only popularity you dont trump shall we say is the liberalism discovered in the west and wealth of the past so. Essentially painter as is the house and the. How about the rising cost in the developing world so if you do a distribution. Whose benefits of marriage from the last its its there is in the way i think lasted about a day and several of the same people are not actually the working classes in the west and havent really benefited from Global Brands the soul and the rabbits of the many during times of stack and so forth so what they send me is we introduce a styrofoam aimed into a system where these people are highly vulnerable anyway after nobody can security is done with a team of lawyers and you know you cant tell the americans are and im not as a witness and so all the people are not stable the poor that all im back create the the conditions for puppets and i think the short sellers for you my all in the show actually it was very attractive because a price in the british that. Very last time so we didnt say anything like precisely that or so on the sample but it went on too long it was articulate on the academic idea that all schools have any data states in the local state so all councils and all. Public services are essentially become defined by and they didnt have to be bassman in them to enable them but that which i think is the shame by the writing of virus crisis spaces to attenuate that well have to leave it there thank you so much for your time there for that dont we preach it thank you. Now while the i. M. F. Says countries do not need to introduce austerity measures or any kind of belt tightening according to oxfam the majority of the loans extended by the lender during the pandemic will require some cuts to public spending and that could force some countries to cut Public Health care pensions and jobs such as doctors and teaches over madrid vera joins me now via skype is the interim executive director for Oxfam International we really appreciate your time this things unfair right if youre an advanced economy and youre already doing ok you can spend spend spend the i. M. F. Says it will be fine but if youre already struggling belt tightening will come and things could get worse. It will not work it will not work for the people i mean obviously we just found that 84 percent of the 91 i am there call it 19 loans and polish and in some cases they dont require countries to a lot talk about sarah the measures in aftermath of the Health Crisis is a thanks at least 767 lower middle Income Countries from the u. S. To 25 or 70 measures could include cuts Public Services including wage freezes cast of Public Sector workers like doctors and nurses it includes increases in value of the taxes which apply to every day to look seeing food households to supervise and fall disproportionately on women and the poorest parts of the population thinking human terms i mean just when people think they can brief us or. Somebody they could be losing their access to health care for themselves or their children or resing income support having over the last jobs so it doesnt work for the poor people for the most Vulnerable People and for the poorest countries and the i. M. F. Itself has been warning of rising inequality has been warning. Of rising poverty but many countries are dependent on International Investors for money right i mean how does that work now hes 2. 00 sides off there off of the going off on the one side it seems like the is the i. M. F. Just 2 faces research and sometimes the executive. That director are saying the right things or 2 countries doing in terms of what they should be doing today i mean the n. F. L. Is saying a standard spend spend it has been calling for an inclusive real recall very sound the alarm bells on inequality peaking and saying that and then he was saying it i mean the i. M. F. Has Strong Research about that and youre awful stary we find we we command these these sort of research and analyses but then comes the unethical practices and as you say i mean countries need money and they need even more money now because of their often their inks and the consequence and so when it comes to the county by county practices we are seeing that loans i mean is so far away from their works and the i. M. F. Is very influential if they want to commission more requests into those laws and they would be how they asked soon we begin to see the end of all of that underneath it will exacerbate they now find the across the world and who as we pay that price we have to see different ways i mean we have to honor this research on the consequences of the conclusions that you cause and we definitely countries need money now where should you come it should come from that consolation during the pandemic problems there is still too many countries that are paying more into debt service than what for example we are spending in health care it has come from 8 revenge bent of a commitments to their open seat 0. 7 percent of the of the g. D. P. That is 50 years now of it and its not there except for a few countries and the i. M. F. Could do more i mean they could go further and block and block these way they harvest off issuing a special drawing rights form of global currency that can be pumped into the Global Economy in times of of me because i dont need now. Im equally sure d even 33 trillion of the special drawing rights which all i am a member countries will be able to access without having to repay so there are ways of all d doing it that are not longs we conditions ok so that is what you think the i. M. F. Could do what about the International Community what about the private sector what should it be doing you know seeing in that signing if if you think about generally speaking about the International Community they should be agreeing and going further in debt cancellation this is schemes they have done something but is not close to what should be should be done because they should include also that from or buying control from other movie that there are creditors and they should include also private sector i mean its really outrageous that now precisely in incoming times i am but i did lenders have not been brought into any kind of these g 20 deals for that cancellation as most of the governments have done so poor countries are continuing to repay their debts to reach banks and hedge funds you know now. So you have this situation where some of the worlds richest and biggest creditors and fortunes on their shareholders are cashing checks when people in their distressed countries are lacking the basic Public Services health care right now are they seriously ill should mean counseling all debt payments all rich countries will institutions but also for private creditors like ok ive got time for one more i just want to bring this back to the reality of what this all means for people who are already struggling for naive and fanaa of lee hoods right because people are going to be impacted by this. I mean all of our Research Also also shows how you got anyone 64 countries countries including kenya or pakistan or some where they were already spending more of on repayments than in health care because the before the pandemic hit them or part of our research to find how far its only 22 per cent of the Global Workforce who has any kind of social protection in such as sick leave or unemployment. Protection even if it doesnt change the full. Economic system and the writing is now taxed the wages what we will be seeing is that vidis we are thinking that even 500000000 people could go into poverty because of the pandemic and its consequences it will even be worse so it has it it needs a full shift if we are thinking about the most liberal of our most impact that by the pandemic that such those that are not only using lives but their livelihoods to ok will have lived there thank you so much for your time that is 10 of their their the interim executive director for Oxfam International we appreciate it thanks to you the pleasure. Now can you dealing commercial deals from politics well thats what germany is hoping to do with the controversial nord stream pipeline that will bring in gas from russia to europes biggest economy thats despite the latest sanctions from the United States that take aim at russian pipe playing vessel academic skate which is attempting to complete the last 147 kilometers of construction but the net has already said it wont bow to u. S. Pressure not to go ahead with the project despite making it more dependent on russia for the supply of energy which washington believes is a Security Threat even the poisoning of russian Opposition Leader alexina valley which many thought may be a reason for berlin to give up on the project has been brushed aside some of germanys own neighbors have imposed their own sanctions poland find russias state controlled gas giant gazprom 6500000000 euros for going ahead with the construction of the nord stream to pipeline without securing its approval. Were joining me now via skype from berlin is europe for big europe is a senior fellow and director for central and Eastern Europe at the German Marshall Fund of the United States really good to talk to you