a moose. i'll just hear ah, picture of a headlines here on al jazeera shall anchors president and prime minister and agree to resign after a day of protests that sold both their homes overrun by demonstrators. the speaker parliament says president got to buy a raja pizza will step down this week. the prime minister whose house was set on fire, says 11 a new government is in place. and l fernandez has moved from columbus. the reports indicate that the president got up a raj, a has told the speak of parliament that he will step down and resign on the 13th of this month. that's basically a few days from now 4 days. 5 from what we're hearing, i've spoken to a couple of sources around the story and they said this may be to take in the kind of transition in terms of a transfer of power to put into place. you know, what happens after his exit. but other observers also say it might be to kind of lay the groundwork to ensure that it says pay less than exit as possible. pulls of opened and elections for japan's upper house of parliament. the votes being overshadowed by friday, assassination of former prime minister chalabi during a campaign event for the ruling liberal democrats. some analysts are predicting a wave of sympathy votes for the party, which could expand its majority. meanwhile, the police chief in a city where our bay was shot dead has admitted there were security floors. local media say the national police agency plans to review its arrangements for the protection of prominent figures for abortion rights activists of hell. demonstrations across the united states that follows last month's decision by the supreme court to reverse or routing that legalized abortion. nationwide, argentina, governments facing a rising tide of protests as it struggles to rein in soaring inflation and poverty . on saturday protests from across the political divide, l separate rallies in buenos aires to denounce the government handling of the crisis. and at least 16 people have been killed by flash floods and indian admin. it's good kashmir waters went through makeshift camps in the himalayas where thousands of hindu pilgrims were taking part, an annual trip to a cave shrine. so those were the headlines. the news continues here on al jazeera, after counting the cost of speech, and thanks so much bye. how and why did susan become so obsessed with this law through giving them a tool to hold the corrupt individuals and human rights abusers accountable? they're gonna rip this deal apart if they take the white house of 2025. what is the world hearing when we're talking about why american today your weekly take on us politics and society? that's the bottom line. ah, i hello, i'm all about this, and this is counting the cost on all the 0, your weekly look at the world of business and economics this week. what's the price of rebuilding ukraine and who are going to be the real winners? also this week, almost 830000000 people around the world, wind hungry in 2021 and that number is rising. why is the world moving backwards as it tries to eliminate hunger and malnutrition? plus zimbabwe currency crisis is getting deeper. why have people lost confidence in banks and the economy ukraine's president let him, his zalinski says, he thinks is going to cost $3.00 quarters of a trillion dollars to rebuild his country after the war. now, even as the fighting continues, western leaders from dozens of nations, international organizations and the private sector, i've been talking about how to rebuild ukraine, many se ukraine needs another marshall plan. that was a huge economic rescue deal that was devised by the u. s. to rebuild europe after world war 2. now the challenge of rebuilding a nation after a conflict is complex. businesses and politicians have a crucial role to play billions of $1.00 at stake. researchers that the world economic forum say private investors going into a war torn country, made a positive business case for investing and unstable conflict. written places may be looking for a functioning state with working institutions, able to give sustainable investment. investors often have skills and experiences that can support governments shattered by fragility and conflict. there will need to be opportunities for public private partnerships to kick start growth and work together. citizens and local businesses must be part of the plans and backers from outside can help foster transparent and efficient money management practices. or joining us from stockholm as toby on backup. he's the director of the stock home institute of transition economics, and he's also a board member of the key school of economics. so thank you very much indeed for being with us. so the world economic forum has produced a long list of requirements that investors would need to be in place before they would move into a country like ukraine to start rebuilding. that's a long list to take off, isn't it? how tough is that going to be? well, it's going to be tough for ukraine us for any other countries that comes out of a situation like this, obviously. and i think we have to remember all of these lists have to start with some level of security in ukraine. so some sort of end to day aggression from russia needs to be the starting point for most of these investments to come, i would think rebuilding ukraine makes for great publicity, but politicians are likely to be using taxpayers, money private investors, are going to be looking to make some sort of profit in terms of the practicality of doing something like this going on past experience. how likely is it that ukraine is actually going to get the rebuilding support that it believes that it means well, it's going to require a lot of of strong reform efforts. i think the 1st step has already been taking with the iraq session process getting off the ground pretty pretty well the last of the weeks. we also have very strong support from international leaders that will help ukraine to move along on the path. but of course, there's a lot of issues to be dealt with on, on the road ahead in terms of the actual investment itself. how could companies and indeed governments, because there's a say they're using taxpayers money be guaranteed that the money that they're investing is actually going to be used in the projects that they believe it is going to be. we have seen historically and places like afghanistan and iraq and, and other crisis at areas in the past where the amount of money that's invested isn't actually the amount of money that gets on the ground. is that a facility for creating some sort of guarantee? well, i think do rebuilding some of the institutions that, that deal with corruption and rule of law is already on, on this short list of things and prior to list of things to do for the ukrainian government. and i think this will be key to this. i also think we have to remember that ukraine is the democratic country that i think has become much more united in this war. so i think there will be a much more strong sense of, of common purpose and direction in the whole country compared to some of the cases you just mentioned where it was much more fractional lies in terms of the domestic politics. i in that sense, i think ukraine has, has better hopes of making this a successful rebuilding process. one of the things that we've seen in the past when there's been investment like this is that companies, countries go in on the stipulation that any work and ins and that is done within the country actually goes to companies within those countries. so essentially the money becomes the cycle, it goes in to those companies, but it then goes back to the original plan, the, the original country, who do you think are going to be the financial winners out of any rebuilding plan for ukraine? well, i mean that, that sort to discuss, i guess, but i mean, we, i think the international community has a strong common interest to make sure that the winners of this is going to be the people of ukraine and not our specific companies that we want to support, i mean there's a long history of, of talking about untied aid, for example, where we do not support our individual countries from, let's say sweden or u. k or, or, or wherever the country is money is coming from. so i think this will also be important here. so the international community needs to do its own work on, on governance and, and the corruption as well as ukrainian site. is there any mechanism within say, i don't know the world bank, for example, any global mechanism that could oversee the level of investment and, and the money that is going into ukraine to try to keep track of what is being put in place? well, i mean, you're mentioning the world bank, which is course isn't important in national play, i think giving the exception process. i think the you needs to be very heavily involved in this funder lion has said that they are setting up the platform to coordinate donors. so i think something like that will be needed to, to really help ukraine coordinate the outside world and make sure that these issues of transparency and an anti corruption. this is dealt with properly. there has been a lot of discussion about whether or not russia should be made to pay for some of the vet rebuilding process. how likely do you think that is and how would you enforce it? i think there is plenty of, of russia nurses that are seized outside of russia's border, but of course it will be probably a very long legal processes to, to make a transfer of those assets to, to ukraine. so i'm in terms of times overrides, and i, i'm not sure when, when that money could be made available to ukraine, but it's going to take a lot of legal processing. i'm sure part of the conflict has seen a lot of damage done to small and medium businesses within the side ukraine, and as is commonly said, small and medium businesses are often a driving force for any countries economy. what is the risk? do you think that the projects they're going to the rebuilding projects they're going to happen in ukraine are going to be on the larger scale and the small and medium business sector is going to to miss out? well, i think it would be quite natural. it's small and medium sized enterprises become some contractors to a lot of these processes. so i'd, i really don't see that a, something for them to miss out on. but i mean, it's also going to depend on what kind of skills they have in those businesses. so maybe part of the solution will be retraining. some of the people that have been working in, in other sectors in the past to be part of the reconstruction process. coming back, i was director of the stock home institute of transition economics. so we appreciate your time. thank you very much indeed. thank you. united nations, it says nearly 830000000 people around the world went hungry in 2021. and that number is set to rise this year in low income countries where agriculture is key to the economy. livelihoods have been affected by the impact from coven 19 and rising global inflation. let's look at syria, for example, where wheat is an essential crop in a deteriorating economy. the many depend on bread as their main source of food. our correspondence in a quarter explains how farmers in the north west who are struggling with drought and high production costs by becoming increasingly dependent on imports of grain. before the uprising in 2011, syria was able to feed itself. but years of war, and now a severe drought has made this nation a net importer of over the past 2 to 3 years. and the whole country has been hit by a crippling drought that its impacts are felt mostly in the north east, which is traditionally the bread basket of the country. her let alone areas that are in the north west of the country or regime held areas. the rise in global prices, sparked by russia's invasion of ukraine, is threatening food supplies to many people in syria. the country is among the 10 most food insecure nations in the world. 12000000 people struggled to get enough food. many of them live in the opposition controlled nor do we have limited incomes. and yet we have to rely on expensive important tweet. because much of the land in this region is mountainous. we can grow much wheat and lands where we can be grown are not accessible. vast areas were set on fire by government forces during the conflict and irrigation channels were destroyed. and even though there is now less violence, front lines still exist. and i know that we are close to that position whose many people can't reach their land because it is dangerous humanitarian organizations, as well as the local authorities, are helping farmers to produce more food. but it's costly to plant crops. so is transporting the harvest due to high fuel prices. fuel is also needed to pump ground water to make up for what is being described a serious worst drought in 70 years. and the opposition held area and the noise production won't be enough for them. as the rod this year 30000 hector's were cultivated. but the low rainfall and high production costs her farmers. a ton of wheat cost $450.00 and we will have to import more than $30000.00 tons this year. the average annual amount of weed production before the war was 3700000 tons. this decline to 1800000 tons between 20152019 harvests are shrinking, and farmers are fighting to survive and was more than half of serious people already hungry. the agricultural crisis couldn't come at a worse time than other shows. ita was cindy hallman as a senior economist of food security and nutrition and the food and agricultural organizations, the united nation. she's joining us now from rome. thank you very much. indeed for being with us, what is driving food insecurity? there's about 4 major drivers that we've been analyzing that, leading to this optic and hunger that we're observing. one is conflict so complex to becoming more protracted and complex. and then we have new context, like the war we're in ukraine. a big one also is climate extremes. climate variability. he, he extreme heat flooding store this extreme climate weather is also creating havoc in terms of production prices. and that's a big driver in terms of food insecurity and hunger. and then the 3rd one, which is actually more growing and prominent is the economic slowdown and shocked weather is caused by the co pandemic. and the measures put in place which disrupt supply chain. people lose their income. so these economic shock really create a big problem for people to access food. so those are the 3 big drivers and then the other one that's very important is inequality. so we see that while he has been going down in the last few years, high income quality or in inequality in terms of access to services like health or basic services in terms of sanitation and, and everything or an equal. so this is high inequality is also a big driver behind food insecurity. so when you get the shock like an economic shock of economic downturn, the market price increase, where there's countries that have high inequality, we see that the effects are much greater. one of the countries around the that are being had hardest by this. well, i think, you know, the coven pandemic, we saw you know, that the largest global recession that we've seen in a long time. and so we saw hunger increased and to insecurity increased in every country around the world. so that was quite a major shock. if we look at the number of people that are hungry, our latest estimates show that since 2019, before the 750000000 more people are hungry. so it did affect every country around the world. however, we do see hunger is increasing faster in africa. the percent increase is higher. this is just about low income countries as you've been talking about, this is hitting all parts of the world. are there any areas which have surprised you, which you wouldn't normally expect to be unaffected by this, that have actually been have had an impact? well, i think, you know, for, for the results were seen, you know, everybody expects you know, the bad news about africa. it is got the fastest growing number of people that are hungry. it has got a drought, it's got conflict, he's got he can make shocks. high levels of inequality. i think that's kind of expected. but i think what's unexpected is the high levels of food insecurity increasing in latin america. so if we look at not in america, the increase in this been doubling in terms of food insecurity since 2015. we also seen, you know, rising the level of obesity and overweight, which is also a very big problem in terms of malnutrition. and so it's a part of nutrition. it's critical for people productivities for their, for their health. and we see that increasing around the world. and that's related to the high cost of nutritious foods, and if i understand it correctly, the world wide financial support for farmers is about $630000000000.00 us dollars. and the un has said that a lot of that doesn't even get as far as the farmers. what kind of impact does that have and, and why is that happening? if you look at the support, the $630000000000.00, most of it goes toward trade barriers, price incentives, and it's very focused on staple crops, dairies, and need well vegetables and fruits and more healthier items are also penalized or even discouraged from production. so we're also calling for a re look at how government are spending their money. healthy diet is 5 times more expensive than a basic energy diet on staples said to me, and we really appreciate you being with us. and i'll just, you know, thank you very much indeed. thank you. as in bob way is battling hyper inflation, which has led to a loss of public confidence of banks and conventional pension systems. many are now looking for safer ways to protect their investments. autotask reports from norton or cattle have become a safer option than the local currency with inflation nearly reaching 192 percent in june. and so bob is dollar fast, losing its value. investing tackle has become a safer option for some people here than the local currency and investment they can see and trust. i think they oversee choose how many units they want to to invest in. i'm. it's also above a dollar related investment. there's $13000.00 units available for investment. one units is equal to under k g's of love capital. the expectation is that the price, the value of the capital appreciates in time unlike them, bob was dollar. and if clients want to get paid out, the investments are valued and they get their cash back for people in zimbabwe and other african nations capital have long been a source of wealth in many rural areas. they're used as currency to pay school fees . now similar schemes loving offer to people in urban areas like any investment, they are risks, animals can get sick and die from trout and diseases. but they also ways to increase their potential. when they dropped their offerings or they they did, they did, they give it to the young ones. that's you are interested said bitter bank and going to the bank and put the money indeed to get get eroded to buy in fresh. so i said that i an investment or what unit asset managers say more than bobbins are looking for ways to protect the savings against inflation as economy struggles to rebound. i think it will gain traction and, and we're very excited for it to, you know, we, we want this to be the thrust of, of starting to develop the national heard and, and get 2nd to exporting of beef. um, and that, that all just supports the, the local industry for now at least tattle seem to be a more stable currency than the local currency. one way of trying to preserve investment value in a country where some citizens have lost faith in conventional methods. how do matessa, al jazeera norton, zimbabwe from johannesburg. i'm joined now by yvonne ma hunger. she's the managing director and head of the africa research economics at renaissance capital. very good to have you with us here. and infections. no. hit 800 percent in 2020. it's a 131.7 percent in may. how bad is this going to get? do you think? well, i think that certainly more upside. so yes, we have seen inflation creep up. um we saw it come down a last year to round a 50 percent junior in the mid of the year and then start to pick up once again as the currency came under pressure. so the most recent print is a 192 percent for june and act reflects the depreciation that the currency has been coming under to your question. i continue to see for, for the upside risk to inflation. and that's in part due to kweisi fiscal operations at the central bank that is putting the current under pressure. and in addition to that, of course, the spike in commodity prices. ok, let's talk about the what the central bank is doing. why is that having an impact on the guns? well, we in a situation where by the government is constrained in terms of financing. and that's related to the fact that the country is officially and that debt distress, which of course, limits their access to external financing. i'm so in a situation that presents itself as a current b, where by the government is constrained on the fiscal front, or you do find that the central bank is stepping in and i'm having a quasi fiscal role essentially, which includes monetizing the budget deficit that of course is adding to the inflation pressures that we are see. also being blamed, i believe, are covered 19 on the ukraine war it's, i, i can understand what you're talking about in terms of the central by how do those other 2 fighters play into this coverage. as you can imagine, x, the government expenditure had to pick up, but to get the health aside in terms of containing a defect, up the pandemic, and also providing a measures to try and support households and businesses that had been impacted, but impacted by the pandemic. so that of course, pushed up spending and now we have the, the ukraine invasion, which as of course, resulted in prices of fuel and food, including fertilizers, picking up the government of zimbabwe. does a subsidized inputs into the agriculture sector including fertilizer. so that's putting upward pressure on spending. and as i, as i mentioned earlier, the government is constrained in terms of financing that don't have the options of external financing that other companies that are more credit worthy to say you do find that the center bank, that step in and monetize is the budget deficit. on oscar borrow more about the, the, the role of the central bank in this because it's being accused of actually creating the situation. the 1st place. find essentially printing lots of cash where it was being advised by economists not to do so. is that a fair accusation? do you think that is part of the problem at to be fair? the, on the fiscal side, at least the authorities have tried to maintain a very small deficit because of concerns around financing that particular budget deficit. but given the constraints that not just bobby, but several african countries have faced during the course of this been demick. it's this said the bank has had to step up in terms of quasi fiscal activities. in addition, a, you have a situation that, that whip by the official currency is ova exchange rate is over valued. i'm sitting at her aunt, who had been a t, as in, baldwin dollars, a to the us dollar. and then you compare that to the palo market exchange rate, which is at over $600.00 to the us dollars. so that is also a part of the problem that the authorities are currently managing an over valued exchange rate, which is putting pressure on the current, the, the market rate to depreciate. one of the things that we quite often seen situations like this in other countries around the world is that you end up with 2 markets, you end up with one with the official currency. and of course you end up with a blank markets. in this case, possibly us dollars is that's what's happening in zimbabwe. that's exactly what's happening and unfortunately it doesn't apply a transfer subsidy. so essentially what's happened is exported to us to surrender their proceeds at an valued rate, as well as those by dollars on the problem market are subsidizing those that can access dollars at the official market. and that's the situation we are seeing now. and bob, we, if the us dollar still has such a grip ins and bob way, do you think that there's any mileage in the country returning to using the us dollar? do you think that the government, a president dennison, my god, what would actually be open to that idea? i think we're ready moving towards him. more dollar eyes does. and bob, we assume that what we had between 20092019 because essentially what's happening is this in baldwin dollars. as you know, currencies meant to be a store value, a medium of exchange in units of account. and if for people tough competence and the currency debts, currency has to hold value, and that's not the case. current b and it's bobby. so yes, currency does tend to depreciate over time duty inflation. but the rate at which this is, bobby dollar is a, is experiencing inflation, is resulting. and it's such an a huge loss of competence on ya. c, as in, baldwin, son, residence seeking, alternative sources, a, including a these gold coins that have been produced in order to try just hold a valued terms of assets, yvonne and marker. we appreciate your time on thank you very much indeed for being with us. and cathy me and that is our show for this week, but remember to get in touch with us via twitter news, the hash tag agent ctc, when you do drop us a line, or you can drop us an email, our address is counting the cost at al jazeera dot net, but there's more for you online. i'd ology 0 dot com slash c t. c. that's going to take you straight to a page, which is good. individual reports links an entire episodes or you catch up on that's it for this edition of counting the cost on rob matheson in the whole team. thanks for joining us. the news on al jazeera is next the latest news as it breaks. this decision basically said that the robi way decision was simply wrong. it is highly unusual for a supreme court to overrule precedent with detailed coverage. the problem bridge will not only significantly reduce the shadow price, but it is expected to initiate acreage damage both from around the world. this one here depicts the late poets was offered and know up who was revolutionary poems in his play of the many under cover reporting. i worked with nuno at one minute, then do doug could finance a whole election revealing corruption? 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