Weaponising water in Palestine

 

Decades of Israeli occupation have left Palestinians struggling to access clean water. Israel controls a majority of the freshwater resources in the occupied West Bank. And in Gaza, its 16-year blockade and military operations have had a devastating effect on the water supply. Monitoring groups say about 97 percent of the water supply in Gaza is contaminated and unfit for human consumption.

Cracking down on the human trafficking of women in Iraq

 

A special police unit in Baghdad is dedicated to bringing the perpetrators of human trafficking to justice.

The trafficking of young women for prostitution is a problem across the world.

But in Iraq, it has reached such proportions that a special police unit in Baghdad is now dedicated to bringing the perpetrators to justice.

Ukraine: A City Under Siege

 

How civilians in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv are living under daily attacks from Russian forces.

Under incessant artillery and aerial attacks, the people of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine have seen their homes and neighbourhoods destroyed and their lives turned upside down.

When Russia invaded their country on February 24, few could have imagined the brutality that would ensue or how hard it would be for civilians to survive.

Many have since fled the shattered city, but for those who remain, somehow humanity prevails.

Under the cover of COVID

 

Have measures taken in the name of defeating COVID-19 also damaged civil liberties?

Since early 2020 the world has been in the grip of a pandemic that has cost millions of lives and affected billions more of us through sickness, economic contraction and restrictions on our movements.

Much of this story has been exhaustively documented – on Al Jazeera and elsewhere – but the crisis has also thrown up a question that has received far less attention.

The Strange Death of American Civility

We investigate how the toxic partisan divisions of the Trump era have eroded civil norms vital for US democracy.

Part 1: Democrats vs Republicans

The United States seems more disunited than at any point in recent history - its politics so undermined by partisan divisions that consensus on almost anything is impossible to achieve.

Toxic partisanship between Democrats and Republicans - the nation's two main parties - has soared under President Donald Trump's administration - worsening since the release of then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on his investigation of Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 elections that brought him to power.

Hungary: Europe's Bad Boy

We investigate why Hungary, under its authoritarian leader Viktor Orban, has repeatedly clashed with the European Union.

In his youth, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was hailed as a champion of freedom, a key figure in the generation of pro-democracy activists who stood up to the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War.

These days he is routinely characterised as an authoritarian, far-right nationalist figure, a demagogue whose migrant-bashing agenda poses a significant threat to Western democratic norms.

Frontline Nicaragua

We investigate the reasons behind the recent insurrection against Nicaragua's Sandinista government.

In April 2018, protests against pension reform plans in Nicaragua quickly mushroomed into a widespread anti-government movement.

The country's Sandinista regime under President Daniel Ortega cracked down hard. Over the following year, hundreds were killed, thousands more were exiled or detained and independent media voices were suppressed.

As negotiations to resolve the crisis finally got underway earlier this year, we sent filmmaker Rodrigo Vazquez to investigate.

Killing Whales

People and Power investigates a fierce personal battle that's raging over the future of whaling in Icelandic waters.

It may come as a surprise to those who thought the practice had long since been outlawed internationally, but although almost universally condemned as inhumane by animal rights groups and conservationists, commercial whaling still goes on - in Japan, Norway and, albeit with occasional breaks, Iceland.

In the latter, where this documentary was filmed, it's only a small industry that's left defying both a global moratorium that's been in place since 1986 and the mass of public opinion around the world that has come to see killing whales as nothing short of murder.

Singapore: The House That Lee Built

We investigate Lee Kuan Yew's complex legacy and the reasons behind a family dispute dividing Singapore's ruling elite.

When the former British colony of Singapore became an independent nation in 1965, there were doubts about its survival. The tiny island state has no hinterland and few natural resources and few at the time thought it a candidate for any kind of success on the world stage.

But today, it's one of Asia's richest cities, a truly modern metropolis that's frequently been described as an economic miracle. It's safe, courteous, orderly, and business friendly, its people are educated and cared for to an extent many of its neighbours can only dream of emulating.

Who paid for Brexit?

People and Power investigates the curious questions about the referendum. Was the original vote to leave the EU tainted?

In June 2016, in a national referendum, the people of Britain opted by a small majority to leave the European Union. It was clear right away that it was to be a controversial decision of truly historical significance (to the United Kingdom, if not to everyone else), but few could have foreseen how it would go on to become one of the most divisive, long drawn out and consensus-shattering episodes in the country's recent history.

Taiwan: Spies, Lies and Cross-straits Ties

We investigate increasing military and diplomatic pressures on Taiwan from the People's Republic of China.

The red flags were impossible to miss. They fluttered noisily on a windy day outside one of Taiwan's best-known landmarks, Taipei 101.

From a distance, I could hear snatches of a song praising the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP. As an elderly man in a Mao cap energetically belted out the ditty, other members of his group marched around scores of bemused - perhaps bewildered - passers-by.

Nearby, another group clad in yellow sat quietly in neat rows in the hot August sun, eyes closed, palms together. A police officer rubbed sweat off his brow as he trained a small video camera on the two lots of people. Three of his colleagues looked on, perhaps slightly bored - these demonstrations took place nearly every day outside Taipei 101.

Searching for Sanctuary in Germany

The remarkable story of two Syrian refugees and their journey to safety in Germany.

It's become one of the defining themes of our age - a tidal wave of humanity in search of sanctuary.

Whether refugees from war and repression or migrants escaping poverty, in recent years millions have taken to the road in the hope that safety and a better life lie elsewhere. 

Some manage it, some don't, but almost every journey is also a remarkable narrative; of hardship and loss, risk and endurance, of hurdles faced and sometimes - but not always - overcome.

Who paid for Brexit?

People and Power investigates the curious questions about the referendum. Was the original vote to leave the EU tainted?

In June 2016, in a national referendum, the people of Britain opted by a small majority to leave the European Union. It was clear right away that it was to be a controversial decision of truly historical significance (to the United Kingdom, if not to everyone else), but few could have foreseen how it would go on to become one of the most divisive, long drawn out and consensus-shattering episodes in the country's recent history.

Two years on, with the deadline for Brexit just a few months away, bitter political arguments are still raging about the exact terms of Britain's departure, whether those terms should be subject to a second referendum or the whole project should be abandoned altogether. Today, as a result, the country appears to be assailed with doubt and uneasy about the future, its international reputation for competence and stability under threat, many of its people infuriated with a tortuous negotiation process that has seen the current UK government as still unable to devise a deal that will be acceptable to all of its own supporters, let alone its opponents or the country at large.

Rendition Revisited

Will the Trump administration sanction a return to some of the darkest days of the so-called war on terror?

Former senior military personnel have warned that the United States could be about to re-introduce a programme of torture outlawed by the then President, Barack Obama, in 2009.

Following the 9/11 attacks, a covert CIA programme led to individuals being abducted and subjected to so-called enhanced interrogation, techniques including sleep deprivation, wall-slamming and waterboarding.

Current President Donald Trump has stated that torture works, he would bring back waterboarding, and "if we can, we should have worse". He has also pledged to keep the notorious Guantanamo detention facility open.

Investigating the numerous failures that led to the worst fire in the Mediterranean country's modern history.

Like many countries around the Mediterranean, Greece suffers from dangerous summer wildfires, but the one that tore along its Attica coast in July 2018 was the worst in the country’s history - claiming 99 lives and leaving thousands of others injured, traumatised and homeless.

"I don't know who to be angry with - angry with God? Angry with people? Angry with myself?" says firefighter Andreas Dimitriou. While he fought to protect others, his wife and baby son were killed by the inferno at home.

Elsewhere, 100kph winds enveloped the gridlocked roads of Mati, a popular resort at the heart of the disaster, catching day trippers in their cars and residents in their homes and defeating the efforts of the emergency services battling the blaze with elderly vehicles, redundant equipment and self-bought uniforms.

America's Guns: Arming Mexico's Cartels

People and Power investigates how an astonishing flow of arms from the US has exacerbated crime and conflict in Mexico.

The United States's constitutionally enshrined love-affair with firearms has given it the highest levels of private gun ownership in the world, a truly staggering rate of gun-related deaths (from high-profile "mass killings" to more routine daily homicides), and a hugely powerful and wealthy arms industry dedicated to preserving the status quo.

Following the latest appalling calamity in February, when 17 people were slaughtered at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, the pro and anti-gun ownership lobbies have been engaging in a now familiar debate about the extent to which US gun laws should be tightened up - with the notoriously pro-gun President Donald Trump pledging to stop such carnage happening in the future.

America's Guns: Secret Pipeline to Syria

How has the international arms trade exacerbated conflict in the Middle East? People and Power investigates.

It's well known that the United States exports billions of dollars' worth of arms and ammunition to its allies. What isn't as widely understood is that many of the guns it supplies to "partner forces" fighting wars in the Middle East - particularly to rebels in Syria - are Soviet-style munitions such as RPGs and Kalashnikovs which are obtained from manufacturers in Bulgaria, Serbia and other Eastern European countries.

There are many reasons for this, of which the most obvious are that fighters in the region have long been familiar with these types of weapons and would rather use them than anything else, and they are relatively easy to obtain. Another reason is that providing guns which can't easily be traced back to the US puts a politically convenient degree of separation between the US and those to whom the arms go - even when the supplies have been sanctioned at the highest level.

The State of Lebanon (video)

Amid deepening regional rivalries what does the future hold for Lebanon's long established political dynasties?

The State of Lebanon

Amid deepening regional rivalries what does the future hold for Lebanon's long established political dynasties?

02 Aug 2018 06:53 GMT Lebanon, Politics, Middle East, Religion, Hezbollah

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Struggling with a failing economy and underperforming or inadequate public services and divided over the not always welcome interference of two rival regional powers, many Lebanese hoped that elections in May 2018 (the first in almost a decade) might jolt the state's political establishment into addressing their many problems.

Others were more pessimistic, seemingly unconvinced that anything would change in a country where power is generally apportioned along sectarian or dynastic lines and corruption is widespread.

Brazil: The Car Wash Scandal

We investigate a massive corruption scandal in Latin America involving some of its most prominent public figures.

Launched in early 2014, the operation was initially thought to be routine - one of a number of similar ongoing probes that the Brazilian Federal Police had on their books.

In this case, the targets were doleiros: black-market money dealers who used small businesses, such as petrol stations and car washes, to launder the profits of crime.

But it soon evolved into one of the biggest and most complex corruption investigations in South American history.

Iran's Water Crisis

We investigate the race to save Iran's water, before water scarcity dries out entire cities and displaces millions.

It is hard to imagine life without access to sufficient quantities of fresh water, but in some parts of the world, particularly the Middle East, that is becoming more than a theoretically disturbing possibility, as climate change, mass migration, environmental degradation, drought and political instability - among other issues - make the use and management of diminishing water resources an increasing challenge.

It's a particular concern in Iran, where a number of problems - not least the stifling effect of years of international sanctions - mean water depletion is now receiving some serious attention.