Israelis Demand Economic Relief As Restrictions Resume; Corporate Earnings Kick Off In Coming Day.
CURNOW: So there's growing anger in Israel over the government's response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Over the weekend, thousands of protesters demanded economic relief after a spike in new cases caused restrictions to be reimposed. Here's Oren Liebermann for that story.</s>OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: On the streets of Tel Aviv, the numbers are going up. First, there's the number of protesters. Police say more than 10,000 people filled Rabin Square to demonstrate against the government's handling of the Coronavirus crisis, demanding economic aid and health signs that read economic war and free the money.</s>YIGAL SHILOAH, PROTESTER: I don't feel that they're doing enough to support us. We eat our savings, we don't get any money.</s>LIEBERMANN: Then there's unemployment which hit 21 percent this week according to the Israel employment service. Over the weekend, 1,250 citizens returned to work with more than twice that number filed for unemployment.</s>MAAYAN ELIASI, PROTESTER: I can't train, I can prep, I can work. I can get money from the country. My clients can't come and train and I had enough of it.</s>LIEBERMANN: And there's Coronavirus which has surged to record numbers of new cases a day. Israel is struggling to contain in July what it thought it had under control in May. The numbers have all put pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who promised up to $2,170 and soon the unemployed and business owners who qualify.</s>BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER, ISRAEL (through translator): This support, this grant is not dependent on legislation. And we ordered that it will be acted already today. The button will be pressed so the money will arrive in account in the next few days.</s>LIEBERMANN: One number that is falling, Netanyahu's approval rating in the handling of the Coronavirus crisis from 74 percent in May to 46 percent now. Last week, Netanyahu held a zoom call with business owners trying to placate their fears. Instead he became the target their anger. My husband and I, we don't know what to do. How are we going to live? This woman tells the Prime Minister. We never got anything in the first round or the second round. There's nothing that we can do. We need a serious solution. Politically, Israel's longest-serving prime minister faces no real threat from the right or the left, but he has to contend with a second wave of Coronavirus on a tide of economic hardship.</s>CURNOW: That report there from Oren Liebermann. Now, COVID-19 is deepening the recession all over the Middle East and causing into the International Monetary Fund to slash its full cost for the region. That's due in large part to much of the world staying home and not using much oil. And that affects so many aspects of these economies from fighting poverty to stimulus plans. Well, John Defterios is standing by live in Abu Dhabi with more on all of that. John, hi.</s>JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN BUSINESS EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: Hello, Robyn. Yes, this is quite a nasty combination that we have in the system right now because, as you suggested, we know that it is a global pandemic. It's slowed down economic growth, but it's undermined oil demand. It was down at one point nearly 30 percent, but it's still for the year, roughly down 10 percent. So this is the way the IMF sees as the major challenges. They call what I just described there, the double whammy, which is hitting the economy's particularly hard, negative 7.3 percent for the Middle East oil exporters overall. They're going to be losing $270 billion vis-a- vis 2019. That is serious erosion. And something that was overlooked beyond the borders of the Middle East here is that the stimulus packages are some of the lowest in the world. So the International Monetary Fund is suggesting with this snapback there's going to be a wave of new pressure and more challenging times ahead. Let's hear the regional director from the IMF.</s>JIHAD AZOUR, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, IMF: Defeated ahead will be marked by high uncertainty amid the unclear shape and the speed of the global recovery. Risks of second round pandemic with more protracted impact are elevated. Therefore, navigating the uncertainty in the period ahead will require agility and preparedness.</s>DEFTERIOS: That's difficult to do if you don't have money in the bank that the Gulf states here on the Arabian Peninsula have $2 trillion of sovereign wealth that's being eaten up. If you have to think of the context of the Iraq, Iran, Angola, countries like Kazakhstan in Central Asia, Libya, the failed state, this is very, very difficult. So you can't be that agile, if you don't have money in the bank and your oil revenue represents 90 percent of your budget.</s>CURNOW: So bad news on that front also, expecting a little bit of bad luck, bad news, and when we talk about the earnings coming out this weekend, particularly when it comes to banks. So many -- so many bankruptcies, certainly going to have an impact on the world.</s>DEFTERIOS: Yes. And Robyn, they're out of the starting gate if you will. They're the first to report their quarterly earnings here. And the bigger names JPMorgan Chase and groups like Citigroup, Wells Fargo, which may give up its dividend, they've set aside $35 billion for toxic loans because of the bankruptcies that you're talking about. That's not going to be nearly enough. Their earnings are probably going to go down by 50 percent. And that's why we saw a spike up in prices early in the day and then a wake-up call saying, OK, earnings start tomorrow, what's going to happen? So we had a fall of nearly one percent for the S&P 500, two percent for the NASDAQ. But if you look at the futures right now, they're at their high for the early morning Asian trade, although we see some of the Asian markets down. And if we circle back to oil in the impact of the Middle East, OPEC is going to be talking about maybe easing some oil back on the market. And this is keeping oil prices under pressure in the Asian trade.</s>CURNOW: OK, thanks so much. John Defterios there in Abu Dhabi, live there. Keep us posted on how things go for the rest of the week. Thank you. So, some news from South Africa. Zindzi Mandela, the youngest daughter of former South African President Nelson Mandela and activist Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has died. She was 59 years old. Mandela was South Africa's ambassador to Denmark at the time of her death. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa says Mandela brought home "the unshakable resolve to fight for freedom." No cause of death has been announced. You are watching CNN. An English Premier League star opens up about the racist abuse he received while playing in Eastern Europe. That story is next.