Al Jazeera World

"Take a step and reject Serzh" was the rallying cry of hundreds of thousands of Armenians who took to the streets earlier this year, forcing the resignation of Armenia's president-turned-prime-minister, Serzh Sargsyan, and clearing the way for the leader of the opposition, Nikol Pashinyan. What was Sargsyan's second term as PM, deemed by many to be a "power grab", lasted only six days. Nicknamed the "Velvet Revolution" for its non-violent nature, the protests marking Sargsyan's departure were a remarkable turning point for Armenia, with the promise of sweeping reforms under Pashinyan's interim administration. But the role doesn't come without challenges. Alongside the need to address internal disputes, such as oligarchs monopolising Armenia's politics and economy, the country is also in a delicate geopolitical situation, balanced between Russia and the West. Moscow provides economic and military support to Armenia, which has been geographically isolated by both Turkey and Azerbaijan, most pointedly with the building and recent inauguration of the Baku-Tiblisi-Kars Railway in 2017 after the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict saw an existing railway that went to Baku via Armenia shut down. Armenia fought a war with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region in the 1990s. Azerbaijan wants its internationally recognised territory back, putting the real risk of conflict on the cards and now, in Nikol Pashinyan's hands. One of Pashinyan's first official moves as PM was a visit to Nagorno-Karabakh. Although he insists on a peaceful solution for the ongoing "frozen conflict" between the two countries, Pashinyan insists that Azerbaijan may have more on its plate than a decades-old debacle with Armenia. "I am sure that the Azerbaijani government is trying to distract the attention of its own people from its own domestic troubles and problems, to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. That is why I am saying that any aggressive move against Armenia is an aggressive move against democracy in our region," says Pashinyan. "We have real will and real desire to solve this conflict peacefully," he continues. "We are ready for negotiations. But I want to insist that we aren't going to make anything in the atmosphere of intimidation. It is important to create an atmosphere of peace". More from Talk To Al Jazeera on: YouTube - http://aje.io/ttajYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/talktoaj Twitter - http://twitter.com/talktoaljazeera Website - http://www.aljazeera.com/talktojazeera/ - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

On July 14, 2016, 31-year-old Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel ploughed a rented 19-tonne truck through crowds out celebrating France's Bastille Day in Nice. He was shot dead by police at the scene but 86 people died and 458 others from 19 different countries were wounded. There have been 12 vehicular attacks since 2006, 10 of which occurred in the two-year period following this incident. Nice has the highest death toll. One of Bouhlel's first victims was Fatima Charrihi, a Moroccan woman wearing a headscarf. In fact a third of the victims that day were Muslim men, women and children - including four year-old Kylan al-Majri who had come out to enjoy the fireworks with his family. Truck Attack in Nice looks at the event through the eyes of three Muslim families who lost two young sons and a wife and mother. They re-tell their own versions of their ordeals on an evening that started with celebration and ended in violent tragedy, as they all struggle to come to terms with a loss that they simply cannot comprehend. The relatively high numbers of Muslim victims in Nice and in the similar Barcelona attacks a year later, challenge the common perception that this type of violence is somehow an expression of Islamic teaching or values. Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had been radicalised quickly through ISIL propaganda a few weeks before Bastille Day. He was known to French police for threatening behaviour, violence and petty theft but did not figure on the "Fiche S", or France's high-security watch list. He was a loner whose neighbours said smelled of alcohol and behaved strangely. The 2016 attack in Nice followed those in 2015 on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine and Bataclan nightclub and neighbouring restaurants in Paris. Each incident turned up the heat in the debate about the relationship between Islam and violence in French politics and society. In the months following Nice, politicians were campaigning for the French presidency. Marine Le Pen seized the opportunity to make political capital out what she and her party call "the Islamisation of France", and former Prime Minister Francois Fillon spoke of what he called a new type of fear running through some parts of French society. "This radical Islam is plaguing some of our fellow citizens. It challenges our common values. I won't allow this. I want strict administrative control of the Muslim religion before it takes root within the Republic," he said. But the French Muslims families in this film see things quite differently. For them, it's not about Islam at all. "Don't involve Islam in this issue," said Tahar al-Majri, who lost his ex-wife and four-year-old son Kylan in the Nice attack. "He ran down people aged four to 80. You can't kill people and say, 'God is Great'. God never tells us to kill people." More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

"The time for change has come" - that was the message from Malaysia's new leader Mahathir Mohamad after his stunning victory over the ruling coalition in May. The 92-year-old veteran politician, who served as Malaysia's prime minister for 22 years from 1981 to 2003, returned to politics two years ago. He opposed the political force he was once a part of - the Barisan Nasional coalition, which had ruled Malaysia since its independence from Britain in 1957. The law must take its course and if the attorney general finds sufficient evidence of acts that are criminal then the attorney general takes the decision. One of our [election] promises was that we would honour the separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judiciary, so I cannot interfere with what the attorney general wants to do. Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia PM Malaysia is a diverse nation with millions of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians living side by side. But in recent years, many Malaysians have been frustrated with high-level government corruption and a rising cost of living. Prime Minister Mahathir accused his predecessor Najib Razak of stealing millions of dollars, and this may have led to Najib's defeat at the polls. Najib has denied corruption charges over the disappearance of millions of dollars from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund, as part of a graft probe while he was in office. The new government led by Mahathir has reopened investigations that were stifled while Najib was in office, setting up a special task force to deal with the allegations. So what are the implications of the 1MDB investigation? And what's next for Malaysian politics? In an exclusive interview, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, talks to Al Jazeera about his fight against corruption and for more transparency in government. - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

In 1990, Lebanon emerged from a 15-year civil war politically fractured and under the control of the Syrian army. Syrian troops eventually withdrew in 2005 but many Lebanese remained deeply wary of their neighbour to the north and east. In the two decades that followed, Lebanon continued to be dogged by regional, religious and political conflict - and Lebanon's efforts to stabilise have been frustrated by factionalism, fraught relations with Syria, Israeli interventions and internal divisions arising from Iran and Syria's backing of the Shia Muslim movement Hezbollah in south Lebanon. After the Syrian revolution and subsequent war in 2011, many wondered whether Lebanon could withstand yet another regional conflict. Today, in a country roughly the same size as the US city of Los Angeles, Lebanon still hosts some 450,000 Palestinian refugees - and since 2011 roughly 980,000 Syrian refugees have fled over the border into Lebanon. Amid the humanitarian crisis, the Lebanese themselves feel torn between their long-standing resentment of Syria's prolonged military presence in their country and a desire to help their Arab neighbours. It's a dilemma that filmmaker Raghida Skaff explores in Shahira: My Syrian Friend, in which she tells the story of her strong personal relationship with a seven-year-old Syrian girl whose family find themselves in her village of Zeghrine 30km east of Beirut. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Each year, childhood ends for an estimated 15 million girls around the world who marry before the age of 18, according to the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW). South Asia has the largest concentration of child brides, but early marriage is a global phenomenon. Girls living in poverty are more susceptible, and by marrying so young, research shows, girls perpetuate the cycle of poverty. UNICEF says they typically drop out of school and as a result, face poor job prospects. "I couldn't go to school because of the war," says Ola, a Syrian refugee who was married at 14 years. "We had to stay at home, the schools closed. I studied only until 6th grade." The Syrian war has created a vortex of conditions, such as displacement and poverty as well as fears about the so-called honour and safety of girls that have prompted families to marry off their daughters. "I left Aleppo six years ago," says Fatima, a Syrian refugee living in a camp in Jordan. "We used to go to the school, then come home. I did my homework, went out with my friends ... If the problems stop, I think I will go back. Because of the the current problems, it's all terror and fear." Jordan is now home to more than 650,000 Syrian refugees. UNICEF says there is an epidemic of child marriage among them and it's on the rise. From the onset of the Syrian war in 2011 to the present, child marriage has spiked from 15 to 36 percent in the kingdom. European countries such as Sweden and Germany, that have welcomed large numbers of Syrian refugees, are also grappling with a dilemma: permit child marriage or separate families. Child brides commonly face domestic violence, restricted movement and are often not given a voice when it comes to making decisions in the family. No matter the justifications families give, the ICRW says, child marriage is "a violation of human rights and a form of violence against girls". 'I wanted to be a doctor' Fatima found out she was engaged just shy of her 15th birthday. Her parents notified her that she was to marry another Syrian refugee. "I wasn't even 15 years old, I was scared. I cried. First I told them I didn't want to [get married]. I am too young. Then they told me he was a good young man and that they knew him ... I was confused: should I agree or not? They used to say 'do as you wish. Do what you like' , but because he was from a good family, a good hard-working man, I agreed." Since fleeing their home in Aleppo six years ago, Fatima and her family have endured fear, hunger and now poverty. The war forced her to drop out of school when she was 10 years old. She says if her destiny had been different, she would have loved to have been a doctor. Instead, she is a 16-year-old wife and mother to a five-month-old daughter, with another baby on the way. "I am pleased with my life. If I am content, it's no one else's business," she says. But when asked about her daughter, Fatima says she would want her daughter to finish her education and not marry early. "She should wait until she is 20 or 25. She would carry too much responsibility while she is young. I wish I could have finished school. I wanted to be a doctor, I never thought of marriage." 'A woman's life is a lot better before marriage' Ola was 13 years old, when her parents first broached the topic of marriage with her. After a one-year engagement, she was married at 14. "You are happy because of the white wedding dress.The girl thinks the man would love her and that she would live a life better than the one she had with her family. He would take her wherever she wanted to go. I thought he would love me more than my family," Ola recalls her feelings when her parents told her about marriage. But once married, the relationship deteriorated quickly. "He didn't have a job, he relied on his family abd I didn't know that he was dependent on his family. After the marriage we used to fight because he didn't work," Ola says. "They [his family] interfered in our affairs and there were problems ... They denied me everything, but they got to go out and do what they liked. I had to do the cooking, washing and cleaning, I lived in the kitchen ... It felt like being in a prison. I couldn't go out." She considers herself lucky they couldn't have children. The 17-year old has spent the last year and a half navigating the Jordanian court system, trying to get a divorce, but her husband and his family have disappeared and her case has stalled. Ola says she regrets getting married so early, because she could have finished her education. "No one should get married that early. You'd avoid a man telling you what to do all the t - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

In early 2018, a researcher at the Palestinian Return Centre in London, Pietro Stefanini, attends a conference where he sees a video by a young Palestinian man. In it, Ahmed Shehadeh speaks passionately about the 70-year ordeal he feels his family has faced living stateless in Lebanon. "I challenge anyone to stay in a refugee camp," he says, "not for 70 years, because we were forced out of Palestine 70 years ago, but for just seven days". Inspired by Ahmed's challenge, Stefanini takes time out from his day job and travels to the Burj Al Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut – a long-established shanty-like community where around 50,000 Palestinian refugees live – but without Lebanese citizenship. This film documents Pietro's stay, from Ahmed's meeting him at the camp entrance until he departs the alleyways and the maze of overhead electrical cables, notorious for falling and electrocuting residents. Students my age have graduated from college as doctors and engineers, but they're unemployed," he says. "I studied nursing but I can't find work. That's why we need different citizenship, Lebanese or anything, even if it's Somali or Indian. Ahmed was born in the camp but his grandfather, Abdullah Shehadeh, was forced out of Palestine during the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948, following the creation of the then new state of Israel. Palestinians refer to this as Al Nakba, 'the catastrophe'. He and his father and siblings went to the border with Lebanon and eventually came to Burj al-Barajneh. The camp was set up by the Red Cross in 1948 to accommodate the influx of Palestinian refugees from what's now northern Israel. As family patriarch, Abdullah is known as 'Hajj' and assembles his sons, daughters and grandchildren to greet Stefanini. He points mournfully to the picture of his wife of 62 years and says she's being treated in hospital. "I wish she were here with us today," he says, "to tell you about Palestine, its natural wealth and heritage… She's been with me since 1956. The house is lifeless without her because she's my entire life," he later says, breaking into tears. Hajj takes Pietro to a gathering of camp elders. A TV screen mounted on the wall plays archival footage of Israeli tanks during the 1948 war. "Look at what Israel has done to us," says Hajj, "how they've displaced and forced us out of our land". Stefanini takes in as much camp life as he can in his week-long stay. At 6am, he accompanies Hajj's eight-year-old great granddaughter, Janna, to her only educational option, a school for refugees run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The Palestinian children have to cross Beirut, travelling an hour or more to get an education. Our homes were demolished," one woman explains. "Our life was destroyed. We still have our keys because we hope we'll go back one day. Palestinian elder/refugee One evening, Pietro also meets Palestinian women, many of whom have lived virtually all their lives in the camp. Like Hajj Abdullah, they all still hope they'll one day be able to return to Palestine. One even wears the key to her childhood home around her neck. "Our homes were demolished," one woman explains. "Our life was destroyed. We still have our keys because we hope we'll go back one day." "What strikes me most," Pietro says, "is that everyone I meet here is trying to find hope." Stefanini also spends a day with Ahmed whose challenge brought him to Burj al-Barajneh. Ahmed studied to be a nurse but is ineligible to work in Lebanon. Instead, he makes what money he can running a small café, singing at weddings and teaching traditional dance, Dabkeh, to Palestinian children. "Students my age have graduated from college as doctors and engineers but they're unemployed," he says. "I studied nursing but I can't find work. That's why we need different citizenship, Lebanese or anything, even if it's Somali or Indian." "Now I know to what depths of despair existence in this camp can bring a man," Stefanini says quietly to himself. Later in the week Hajj Abdullah's wife is discharged from hospital. As younger family members wheel her into the house, the scars of the years of prolonged suffering are visible when Hajj bends over and tenderly kisses his wife. "Welcome back my love. Welcome back. May God protect you." More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Widely seen as the world's leading primatologist and conservationist, Jane Goodall has an unparalleled understanding of chimpanzees. Goodall's study of chimpanzees, human beings' "closest living relatives on earth", began in 1960 when she travelled to Tanzania for this sole purpose. Her moment of international recognition came with the broadcast of the documentary 'Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees' across the United States. However, Goodall's career hasn't always been embraced by society. As discoveries were made establishing the real biological and behavioural similarities between chimpanzees and human beings, the resistance in both the press and general public grew, the main point of contention being how a woman - without a university degree - could make such claims about humanity. As science backed the facts Goodall continued to uncover, those issues were more or less laid to rest; but the peoples' trust in science and what studying chimpanzees could tell us about humanity, especially whether aggression was an innate trait or something learned, was a real political predicament. "At that time, in the early 1970s, it was a political issue. Science was divided as to whether human infants are born with a clean slate, everything is learned from your culture, your society, from your mother ... I was saying, no, some things are inherited, it's instinctive - I know as a mother. When your child is threatened you get this surge of adrenaline and sometimes anger. It's not rational, but it's there," Goodall recalls. "It's mostly people who don't want to admit that animals have personalities, minds, and above all, emotions." In light of an upcoming visit to chimpanzee sanctuary Ngamba Island, Goodall also recalls the maltreatment and abuse of primates at the Entebbe zoo when she first visited Uganda under then-president Idi Amin's rule. "They [Entebbe zoo] had about eight or nine infant chimps whose mothers had been shot for bushmeat. They didn't have proper cages ... they had nothing to do. They were very disturbed. I managed to find [the chimps] a zookeeper from London Zoo. Gradually they built up proper cages ... and one of the things that she did was give them paper and paint brushes. Some of them paint fine shapes, circular shapes ... they began selling them, which raised money. That was the beginning of it. The island was created for orphan chimps whose mothers were either killed for bushmeat or they were poached, so the infants could be sent off and sold as pets or entertainment," says Goodall. Although Goodall has never personally been threatened by those whose interests she may challenge, such as wildlife poachers, the resistance to understanding the interconnectedness of humanity, animals and the environment is something she has tirelessly worked to rectify. "It is our society [the developed world] that were raiding the forests for timber and so forth. That's when I thought, unless we have new generations growing up to understand better our relationship with the natural world, then soon there will be nothing left, we will suffer. And I began my Roots and Shoots programme. Our Roots and Shoots groups work on three interrelated problems to help people, to help other animals - because we are animals too - and to help the environment," says Goodall. - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Millions of Turkish voters will head to the polls on June 24 to simultaneously elect a president and new members of parliament. It's the first time since the referendum last year when the people approved key constitutional amendments - giving more power to the presidency. Incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) argue that a more powerful executive presidency makes Turkey more stable. But critics like Temel Karamollaoglu, presidential candidate and leader of the Saadet Party, warns that Erdogan is moving the country to a dictatorship and says the president is not doing enough to unite the Muslim world abroad. "The new presidential system is going to lead Turkey to a dictatorship," Karamollaoglu says. "There is no doubt, because the parliament has no influence on the president. They can't control, they can't produce any values which will be effective, so the president, in fact, will decide whatever he thinks proper without consulting the parliament." And although the people voted for the constitutional changes, Karamollaoglu believes that "the public can make mistakes as well. It will be too late when they see, realise what the dangers are and what they will face." "We believe in separation of power ... The government should not have any influence on justice, on the courts. Today, the government directly controls and gives in fact orders to the courts. You can't have justice in a world like this," he says. Asked about his chance to winning the presidency, he says, "there are some rumours that certain tricks are prepared, but we don't know what will happen. When you take part in elections, you go there to win." President Erdogan has been ruling Turkey for more than 15 years, and his spokesperson is confident that he will win another term - with increased powers. "Those who claim that the new system will be some kind of an authoritarian autocracy, one-man rule, etc, they should study political history and look at examples of other presidential systems," says Ibrahim Kalin, the spokesperson for President Erdogan. "If you look at for example, how much power an American president has, it's not any different ... The presidential system cannot be called an authoritarian system. In fact, if you look at the model itself, the full separation of powers - judiciary, executive and legislative - that is fully separated in the presidential system." According to Kalin, "the judiciary used to be dominated by a kind of a more secularist type of judges and prosecuters in the past. Then what happend in the last five, six years was, the Gulenists infiltrated the judiciary ... they put their people in key positions of the judiciary - prosecuters and judges ... and they were controlling the judiciary. We have eliminated the Gulenists from the judiciary ... They are independent." Some opinion polls suggest a tight race and some have suggested that Erdogan's AK Party might not achieve a parliamentary majority, but Kalin says there is no doubt about the election outcome. "I think most of the criticism that you get from some western media outlets and commentators is based on a total misreading of the political realities in Turkey ... Erdogan has entered almost 14 or 15 general, local elections and referendums over the last 14, 15 years and he has won every single one of them," he says. "The vote on Sunday is not going to be any different according to the polls and to what we see on the ground ... We see the crowds on the streets, and their aspirations and their expectations from the government and from the leadership - it's very clear that he is set to win this election as well." "Just because he keeps winning doesn't make him an authoritarian person." On this episode of Talk to Al Jazeera, Temel Karamollaoglu, the leader of the Saadet Party, and Ibrahim Kalin, the Turkish presidential spokesperson, discuss Turkey's upcoming election, Erdogan's foreign policies and challenges facing the country. - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

When she catches up with long lost female friends, Tarfa Itani usually anticipates their first question: "Are you married?" "I answer 'no'," says the thirty-something jewellery designer and boutique owner in Beirut. And then they usually follow-up with, 'Why, you're pretty?' Her eyes sparkle as she talks to filmmaker Simon El Habre who is on his own personal quest to discover why, at 40, he hasn't yet found the woman he feels he wants to commit the rest of his life to. Finding time for a personal life has not been easy and though Itani's had several relationships, she hasn't yet found a life partner. She feels that women's expectations finding the perfect man are unrealistic, but also believes that many Lebanese women these days no longer feel pressure to see marriage as the be all and end all. It's not a burden or a responsibility. It's about companionship, love and beautiful moments together. It's unfair to link marriage to all these negative thoughts. Tarfa Itani, jewellery designer and owner of Falamank Boutique "It's not a burden or a responsibility," she says standing in her jewellery boutique where she supplies a growing Arab and international market. She's referring to social pressures and growing divorce rates. "It's about companionship, love and beautiful moments together. It's unfair to link marriage to all these negative thoughts." El Habre comes across a number of factors contributing to increasing numbers of single, thirty-plus women in Lebanon. Women outnumber men by more than 2 percent in the country of six million. It's a situation that becomes more pronounced as people enter their late thirties and early forties and is exacerbated by the sometimes rigid roles imposed by Lebanese society, across religious and cultural boundaries. Getting work has become an increasing problem following the end of the Lebanese Civil War, in 1990. Unemployment hovers around seven percent today, so many men now work abroad, marrying foreign wives. Educated Lebanese women, tied to the more traditional expectations of parents and extended family, have tended to remain in Lebanon. For 40-year-old Adriana Lubos who works in advertising, that's simply the way that it is. "Men with qualifications leave Lebanon to get married, because there are no opportunities here for them to achieve their ambitions," she says. To try and better understand the situation, Adriana has been writing a blog, candidly sharing her experiences with online dating and relationships. "People usually marry in their early thirties. But if they reach their mid-thirties, something must be wrong," she says. "That's the rule and you become the exception. So you try to understand why." Accurate statistics are hard to come by but informally Adriana believes that for every single, eligible man in Beirut, there may be six or more single women. After living on her own and forging her own successful career in local government - and becoming the first female president of her municipality - Fadia Abo Ghanem Maalouf has finally settled into marriage. But when she met her future husband, it wasn't all plain sailing. "After we had many clashes, we suddenly fell in love. It's the most beautiful thing. Life is shared between two, not one." In contrast to 10-hour work days and nights with as little as two hours sleep, Fadia has found fulfilment in a more traditional role. "It's nice to go back home and find someone waiting for you, someone who loves you, is kind, respects you and completes your ambitions," she says. El Habre concludes that, in today's Lebanon, perhaps being single is becoming the new norm. Women are taking more control of their lives in ways that much of society has not yet adjusted to. The consequences for Lebanon - and potentially the Arab world as a whole - may be an increasing shift away from traditional family structures. But, as yet, no one quite has the answers as to what will replace them. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

The high-profile case of the death in police custody of French teenager Adama Traoré in 2016 sparked wide-spread protests across the whole of the greater Paris region. The young black man was planning to celebrate his 24th birthday that evening but he never made it home. He was dead only a couple of hours after his arrest. A second autopsy confirmed that Adama died from suffocation. "We underwent intense pressure and repression. Today, we have a dead brother and three in jail from the Traoré family," says Assa Traoré, Adama's sister. News of Traoré's death caused anger and despair in some under-privileged areas of the suburbs. Days of protests followed and some members of the local community clashed with police, setting cars and buildings alight. Al Jazeera Arabic reporter Abdullah Elshamy asks what it means to be French - if you can’t get a job, you are targeted because of your race and seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than your white, middle-class counterparts. He visits several suburban communities to identify first-hand the social, cultural and economic problems facing the high-rise estates in ‘banlieue’ towns like Argenteuil and Aulnay-sous-Bois. "Poverty here is indescribable," says Oulfa, who balances her charity work with full time employment. "This association collects cheaply-priced goods to sell to the residents of the neighbourhood at lower prices. What you see in this grocery store is what's left in big shops. We collect all thrown, broken and even expired groceries to sell them here." Like Oulfa, others are trying to bring about positive change to their local communities. A group of young men who’ve all served prison sentences are now martial arts instructors to local young people. For boxing coach Toufik, being a positive role model and mentor for the next generation is important. "Before the training we always have a 10 or 15 minutes conversation with them. We teach them about the life's values and respect of parents and the authorities." But not far from the government-funded sports centre are those who represent the darker side of life in Aregenteuil. It wasn’t difficult for Elshamy to find a drug dealer there. "We didn't choose to be gangsters. We'd like to work in offices with computers. But we can’t because they won't accept us," says the unidentified Malian man. Behind the dealer’s alienation lies a whole sub-culture, in which young people like him simply don’t have the same educational and social opportunities as the white, middle-class. They feel marginalised from mainstream French society. "We don't feel French," says rapper Salem, who's been arrested several times. “We are the sons of immigrants." His friend Farid adds "They treat us as if we don’t have the right to succeed in life. They want to stigmatise the suburbs as negative, dirty places." He is currently unemployed and has had several job applications rejected, he believes, because of racial profiling. "So we end up with no trust or communication." The alienation is felt mostly by second and third generation descendants of the immigrants from the former French colonies in Africa who came to boost the labour force in the 1970s. In 2009, the France National Centre For Scientific Research published a report called ‘The Police and Minorities’. It found that police identity checks in Paris were based mainly on appearance and that, unsurprisingly, people looking black or Arab were searched far more often than those looking white. Blacks, it said, were stopped and searched twice as often as whites but Arabs were seven times more likely to be stopped than white people. "I have never seen anyone saying he is racist or using racist words during an intervention," says Bernard Pasqualini, a former Paris police chief. "I've seen washing machines falling from the roof of a building [on firefighters]. It doesn't matter if he's white, yellow or black. I think the reaction would be the same." "We're accused of stopping people from overseas origin. The problem is that they're the majority of these neighborhoods population," adds Pasqualini. Unrest in the suburbs has enabled right-wing parties like the National Front and its outspoken leader Marine Le Pen, to accuse these areas as being hotbeds of extremism at the forefront of what they call the ‘Islamisation of France’. According to Gaetan Dussausaye, the President of the Youth National Front (FNJ), "The Paris suburbs face big economic and More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

It has been one year since Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt severed diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting "terrorism" and fermenting regional instability. Land and maritime borders with the Gulf country were shut, air links suspended and Qatari citizens expelled. How is the state of Qatar, the world's largest exporter of natural gas (LNG) coping with the GCC crisis? And what is the impact on the region's future? We talk to Qatar's foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani about the worst diplomatic crisis in the GCC's history, the impact of the blockade, and alleged threats of military action by Saudi Arabia over Doha's plans to purchase military equipment from Russia. "The purchase of any military equipment is a sovereign decision that no country has anything to do with," he told Al Jazeera. "There's no legitimate grievance behind this letter [from Saudi King Salman to Emmanuel Macron] and of threatening Qatar. It's violating international law, it's violating all the international norms and, most importantly, it's violating the GCC charter, which says the countries of the GCC should not launch any kind of attack against each other," he said. According to Al Thani, "the amount of tension in this region is increasing and unfortunately it's increasing because of this impulsive behaviour conducted by the blockading states." "All our friends and allies play a role in preventing any further escalation in the region because they understand that the region cannot afford further escalation ... and the US is a strong ally for Qatar and for the other GCC members." Asked about whether there's any hope to end the crisis, Al Thani said, "Qatar remains open to any possibility of dialogue which is based on respect of international law, which is based on respecting the sovereignty of each and every country, based on the respect and independence of every country." "They cannot impose demands on a sovereign country. If they have any concerns, any grievances, they have to sit at a dialogue table and discuss those concerns." - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Gaza residents have protested along the Israel border every Friday since, angry at Trump and demanding for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the areas they were forcibly expelled from by Zionist militias in 1948. As Trump's daughter and adviser, Ivanka, inaugurated the new US Embassy in Jerusalem on May 14, Israeli soldiers shot dead 60 Palestinians and wounded more than 1,200 others along the border with Gaza. Palestinians now describe the mounting fury and desperation in Gaza over Israel's land, air and sea blockade, which began in 2007 following Hamas victory in Gaza elections the previous year. There is also increasing frustration with the failure of Palestinian politicians to come together and act on behalf of their citizens more effectively. "There's no money because of all the wars and unemployment," says Nafez Adayess, a baker. "There's no work, nothing to keep busy with, nothing. There's four guys sitting around [but] there's [only] enough work for an hour. "Four men and we're barely making enough to feed ourselves". Almost four years after the 2014 war, Gaza's continued isolated has devastated its economy, impoverished its population and left 60 percent without jobs, adequate electricity and health services. Aid organisations say around 90 percent of Gaza's water is not safe to drink, Raw sewage is pumped directly into the sea because there is not enough electricity to power the sewage. "We live in a prison," says Nahed Alghool, who delivers drinking water. "People don't know what to do, the situation is difficult". Israel says the blockade is a necessary counter terrorism policy against Hamas and denies specifically targetting Palestinians. In addition to the blockade, the factional fighting between Hamas and the other main Palestinian party, Fatah, has made life for the people of Gaza even more difficult. "From the moment the people elected Hamas, they punished us. If we hadn't elected them, we wouldn't have been punished," says Ahmed Al Hissi, a fisherman in Gaza. "We chose our freedom and democracy, but they didn't want that". There have been repeated reconciliation efforts between Fatah and Hamas, but none have succeeded. An October 2017 deal was supposed to see Hamas hand over control of Gaza to the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) so that a unity government could be formed. In exchange, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas promised to lift crippling sanctions that the PA had imposed on Gaza, including payments for electricity and paying the salaries for out of work PA employees. Hamas says it has handed over administrative control to the PA but refuses to disband its 25,000-strong military wing or to give the PA full control of internal security. More from Talk To Al Jazeera on: YouTube - http://aje.io/ttajYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/talktoaj Twitter - http://twitter.com/talktoaljazeera Website - http://www.aljazeera.com/talktojazeera/ - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Many of Morocco's nomadic communities living across the Atlas Mountains, like the Ait Atta tribe, are gradually changing their way of life from roaming herders to part settlers - or what sociologists call "a sedentary lifestyle". But such fundamental change comes challenges, as well as opportunities. Traditionally, nomads do not receive a formal education. However in the past decade, there have been moves to introduce what they call "tent schools" to try and equip their children for the modern world. But for them to attend school, their families have to remain in one place all year. It might also mean that the children ultimately leave their parents' traditional nomadic way of life. "They told us they'd provide education for our children if we settled in a particular place," says nomad Daoud Ariba. Helping with that adjustment are social activists like Ali El Amine. It was his idea to bring the tent schools to the region, with help from international agencies and the Moroccan government. "Our goal is to see nomads at all levels of education, in college and even university. We want them to get diplomas and not to stop at the primary level and then return to cattle grazing," says El Amine who is also the President of Chems Association. In addition to providing tents, the association serves as a liaison between the nomads and local authorities. "We try to integrate the children into charity groups and obtain financial support for them," he says. While the tent schools are a first step towards settling the nomads, the schools' remote locations, harsh winters and heavy rains pose challenges for teachers and pupils. "When I came here, I walked for two hours," says teacher Abdallah al-Sahraoui. "I got an idea about the area from the road condition. The road was difficult with dangerous bends. I had to walk up and slide down the mountain. I had to walk for two hours to reach the school." The tough mountain terrain also poses risks. Teenager Ittou lost her leg after she suffered a snake bite in the middle of nowhere. "My father came running and I told him I was bitten. He poured household bleach on the wound. But it did not work. He carried me on the back of a mule because of the lack of transportation," she says. The nomads who settle also have to learn new skills, like basic building techniques. "We were nomads living in tents, but now we've settled here," says Mohamed Ait Trichet of the Tidakline Nomads Association. "We're learning construction. We make clay brick to build our houses and other facilities." The change for the Ait Atta is happening and there's hope that nomad communities that have been struggling below the poverty line will start to create a more viable way of life. Education has undoubtedly been the catalyst for change for the nomad tribes. Sedentarisation will take time and not all the nomads embrace the change. "I don't see any difference between nomadic or non-nomadic children in terms of their capabilities and their potential", says teacher Mohamed El Bakri. "But I see in their eyes the desire to learn and discover new things." Morocco is not a wealthy country, but it wants to modernise and give its people the best chances in life. But if the process of change continues in this way, these proud people and their children really will be the last nomads of Morocco. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

When Japanese journalist Ryuichi Hirokawa went to Israel in 1967 to work on a kibbutz, he was fascinated by the idea of a farming community based on socialist principles. He wanted to work there and study Hebrew. But two weeks after his arrival, the 1967 Arab-Israeli war erupted. "I thought Israel was right in this war, because the Palestinians and Arabs wanted to destroy Israel," says Hirokawa. But one day, he stumbled across rubble covered with cacti and scattered rocks that later proved to be the remains of the village of Daliyat al-Rawha - a village that had disappeared from the map. "I asked people in the kibbutz [about the village] but they didn't answer me," Hirokawa recalls. Hirokawa investigated what had happened to the village and, checking an old English map, next to the names of former Palestinian villages he found the word 'destroyed'. "I was shocked. I thought I was working in a farm belonging to the kibbutz. But I realised I was working in a place where people once had a life ... I thought there must be people in this country who, like us, would say the war was wrong, the lands shouldn't be seized and must be returned." Hirokawa says his investigation taught him about Nakba and changed his perception of the founding of Israel and the Palestinian cause. After his return to Japan, and throughout his career as a journalist, Hirokawa continued to document the plight of Palestinians, including their expulsion to Lebanon. He documented the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut and eventually presented his evidence at international hearings in Oslo and Geneva. "When I heard about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, my heart went out to the Palestinian people who had suffered so much. In 1948, they were expelled by Israel. And for 30 years they lived as refugees," says Hirokawa. "Their only hope was to liberate their country and return home ... However, from the very start of the Israeli invasion, it was very clear that the aim was not only to destroy the PLO. The Israelis also tried to kill the greatest number of Palestinians." Since 1948, over 420 Palestinian villages have disappeared. Hirokawa filmed over 1,000 hours of footage and took thousands of photographs of Palestinians and their former villages, which he eventually turned into his own film about the Nakba. Although aged 71 when 'Witness From The East' was made, Ryuichi Hirokawa is still enthusiastically working, and is very much motivated by his life's mission to uncover the truth. "We need to collect evidence about what really happened in Palestine, which they call Israel, about what these ruins really are and what happened to the people who used to be there. We need to find that out." More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/