Al Jazeera Correspondent

As the United States maintains its "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran, tension is on the rise in the Gulf, raising concerns over a full-blown military escalation. While the US has beefed up its military presence in the region, the administration of President Donald Trump has been seeking allies for an international naval coalition to "combat Iranian aggression" in the Strait of Hormuz - one of the world's busiest and most important shipping routes. Iran's government meanwhile says the naval build-up could destabilise the entire region and has called for US vessels to leave the area. "We believe that the best the US can do for the protection of maritime navigation is to just leave people alone; don't interfere," Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tells Al Jazeera. "This is basically a hostile act against Iran and I do not believe it will have any impact other than insecurity." He also warns against US weapons sales in the Middle East, saying, "if you are talking about threats coming from the region, the threats are coming from the US and its allies who are pouring weapons in the region, making it a tinderbox ready to blow up". The crisis between the two powers escalated last year when Trump pulled out of a landmark nuclear agreement signed between world powers and Iran in 2015, saying it was a bad deal. He has since reinstated sanctions targeting Tehran and countries trading with it - a move Zarif calls "economic warfare". "The Americans are not in a position to draw red lines for what we do for our defence," he says. "I think the United States is the source of instability in this region. I think US allies, unfortunately, have been the source of instability," he says, referring to countries including Israel and Saudi Arabia. "What is very clear - extremely clear - is that we are not seeking war, we do not want confrontation, we want development for our people, we want development for our region," he says. "We need stability here, but stability should be for everybody. We cannot have stability for some and instability for others. We need to have stability for all countries in the region and we are prepared to protect stability for all countries in the region, and for those who depend on our region." On Iran's continued commitment to the nuclear pact and its viability, Zarif says he believes "it is the best deal that was possible", even though he admits that it encountered opposition. "It wasn't the best deal for everybody because you cannot have the perfect deal. There is no perfect deal," he says. "And if President Trump is given correct advice, he will be able to basically accept the reality that this is the best deal possible and we can move forward." However, Zarif feels the deal can proceed even without US involvement, as long as the remaining participants agree to fulfil their own commitments. "What we want them to do and what we expect them to do is stay committed. And we will stay committed as long as they are," he says. So far the European Union is still sticking to the deal, offering a mechanism to bypass US sanctions. "I think it's an important signal that the United States is getting more and more isolated - not because of anything we have done but because of what they are doing," Zarif says. "They are violating the law, they are breaking the law, they are breaking every international treaty they have been a member of. They have broken not only the nuclear deal with Iran, but the Paris convention, the Trans Pacific Partnership - basically everything they could break they are breaking. So they are the source of instability globally and this type of behaviour will lead to further global disorder. And I think that is dangerous for everybody and everybody is realising that." On Iran's ties with its neighbours in the Gulf, Zarif says the country hopes to achieve normalisation of relations. "What we have called for, and repeat, is that our neighbours - all of us - belong to this region, we cannot leave this region. Others will leave this region; others will not secure us; others will not provide us with the security umbrella that we need. We can provide each other with that security umbrella. We extend our hand, and our hand remains extended, to all our neighbours." Zarif admits he is "certainly concerned" about the the potential for a war in the region. "But as a diplomat, I always need to look for a peaceful way out. And that's what we are trying," he says. -- - 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/

Note: This is part one of a two-part documentary. Sudan has a troubled history and has been in almost constant turmoil since the 1950s. Regime change, coups, street protests, famine, war, political division - and in April 2019, the toppling of President Omar al-Bashir. The history of modern Sudan is punctuated by several coups, including in 1989, the seizing of power by al-Bashir, whose regime would last for three decades. In the background was Hassan al-Turabi, the power behind the leadership, and the man many call the architect of modern Sudan. "Al-Turabi was a successful politician, not in the sense of political achievements on the ground but in his capacity for mass mobilisation, creating an organisational structure and ensuring continuity," says Dr Al Nour Ahmed, a researcher, academic and Sudanese opposition member. "No politician had ever created a cohesive organisational body in Sudan as al-Turabi did." Al-Turabi was enigmatic, a learned Islamic scholar, the founder of Sudan's religious political party and an arch-politician. His followers revered him as a scholar, diplomat, spiritual leader and strategic thinker, with an uncanny knack of backing winners. "Thanks to his quite diverse experience, he combined traditional Islamic culture with modern European thinking," says political analyst Dr Mohamed Mokhtar al-Shanqity. But to his many enemies, he was Machiavellian, ruthlessly ambitious and sought power on his own terms. "Al-Turabi was known for his intellectual and political flexibility. Political shrewdness is one of his greatest strengths and at the same time one of his major weaknesses," al-Shanqity says. As al-Bashir's attorney-general, al-Turabi was at the heart of power and also at the centre of Sudan's religious ideologues who controlled the executive, the military and the judiciary. When al-Turabi set up a General Assembly to discuss a worldwide Islamic revolution, he attracted people like Osama bin Laden who, as a then-Saudi entrepreneur, set up businesses in Sudan. However, relations with the West deteriorated and Sudan's exiled community, antagonistic to al-Bashir's authoritarian rule, grew. In the 1990s, al-Turabi came under increasing pressure. Soon a rift developed with al-Bashir who dismissed al-Turabi in 1999. He spent the rest of his career in opposition, and spent many years in prison. His loyal following gave him continued support until his death in 2016. Throughout al-Bashir's regime, al-Turabi was a key background figure. His political sway and his avowed mission to establish a religious state in Sudan, both formed and later challenged al-Bashir - even from his prison cell - and hold weight even in events unfolding today. In the current power struggle enveloping the country, al-Turabi's influence is still felt - not least among some of the protesters vying with the army for civilian rule in the post al-Bashir era. In this two-part series, we trace the rise and fall of Hassan al-Turabi, and explore the vast influence he had over five decades of Sudanese politics. - 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 Middle East is both the most polarised region in the world - meaning you have all these divisions, all these axes - but also the most integrated, which means that what happens in Syria matters to Saudi Arabia, matters to Iran, matters to Israel," says Middle East analyst and former Obama-administration adviser, Robert Malley. "And so you cannot have an uprising that simply lives on, on its own." Formerly a White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and Gulf Region, Malley now heads leading think-tank, the International Crisis Group (ICG). Under Barack Obama, Malley was part of the team that crafted the Iran nuclear deal - the one Donald Trump's White House then withdrew from in 2018, calling it "defective". "His [Trump's] criticisms are either deliberately dishonest, or he hasn't read the deal or he doesn't know what's in it," Malley tells Al Jazeera. He says Trump decided to withdraw from the deal to get a better deal and to curb Iran's behaviour in the region. But "what have we seen a year later? Iran is now itself moving away from the deal, so its nuclear activities are worse than they were under the deal." "It could well lead to a war that I am profoundly convinced the president doesn't want," he says. "But I think he [Trump] is on a collision course with himself because his policies - whether he is aware of it or not - are leading towards the possibility of military confrontation that his instincts oppose." Under the Obama administration, the US also got involved in Saudi's war in Yemen. In April, Malley wrote in the Atlantic: "For an American who had a hand in shaping US Mideast policy during the Barack Obama years, coming to Yemen has the unpleasant feel of visiting the scene of a tragedy one helped co-write." He tells Al Jazeera that despite the US having "huge reservations", they agreed to get involved in the Yemen conflict in 2015 to support an ally, Saudi Arabia. "The feeling was we can't afford another rupture with Saudi Arabia - which could be a major one - after coming in the wake of the Iran negotiations. So the president [Obama] had this view of, we can help Saudi Arabia defend its security, defend its borders, defend its territorial integrity while trying not to get too involved in the war with the Houthis," he says. "But in a way that was getting half pregnant. Because once you support Saudi Arabia - once you support the Saudi-led coalition - support is fungible. And the US became complicit in what today the United Nations says is the worst humanitarian crisis we face. So this is a case of tragedy in which US fingerprints are very present." On US interests elsewhere in the region, Malley feels "the world is spending too much time talking about this 'deal of the century'" that Trump has proposed to solve the Israel-Palestinian crisis. "We know that if and when this is put on the table, the Palestinians will say no," he says."Because even if it's slightly better than people expect, it's going to be far less than what President Clinton proposed to the Palestinians in 2000, less than what was on offer during the George W Bush presidency, less than what was on offer for the Palestinians during the Barack Obama presidency, so there is no way they are going to say yes. "The gaps between the parties on the central issues of identity, of territory, of refugees, of security, of settlements, all those gaps are very wide. And it will take ... a very strong third party to try to get the parties where they need to go," Malley says. Although he believes the two-state solution is "still the best possible outcome" for the region, he concedes that it's becoming harder to see it as the most realistic option. "It's pretty easy today to say that the two-state solution is more and more a thing of the past," he says. "It's not very easy to say what's a thing of the present or the future." - 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/

Did the Bahraini government collude with al-Qaeda members to target Shia opposition figures during the 2011 unrest? In February 2011, following unrest in Tunisia and Egypt in the early days of the so-called Arab Spring, opposition demonstrators took to the streets of the Bahraini capital, Manama. The protests quickly gathered momentum, with demonstrators demanding greater democracy and an end to discrimination against the majority Shia Muslim community by the Sunni regime. But in March, the protests were quelled. The king declared a state of emergency and brought in the Peninsula Shield Force, the military wing of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The government called the unarmed protesters and activists "terrorists". Civilian demonstrators were teargassed, beaten and shot. Now, allegations have surfaced suggesting that the Bahraini government made attempts to coerce members of al-Qaeda in Bahrain to target key figures in the Shia Muslim community during the unrest. In leaked secret video recordings, former members of al-Qaeda say that the Bahraini government and intelligence officials cracked down on and tried to assassinate key Shia opposition figures. The recordings say that Bahraini intelligence officers recruited al-Qaeda members to form a cell to murder Bahraini opposition activists, on orders from the king. In one recording, former al-Qaeda member Mohammad Saleh says: "A state security officer and another officer ... paid me a visit. They said they'd come on behalf of His Majesty the King of Bahrain at a time when the country was having a difficult time. He said that we, as fighters and members of al-Qaeda could help quell the Shia." In a different recording made at the same time, Hisham Hilal al-Balushi - who was later a known leader of a Sunni armed group in Iran, before being killed in 2015 - talks about being detained by Bahraini security services and then recruited to infiltrate another group in Iran. In this film, Al Jazeera Arabic reporter Tamer Almisshal examines the video testimonies and speaks to former intelligence officers, diplomats, human rights activists and security experts about the allegations. The Bahraini government has strenuously denied the allegations made in this film. The foreign minister called them "lies and fallacies against the state of Bahrain". The minister of information said there were "attempts made by Al Jazeera channel to contact him and other officials, through unidentified telephone numbers, to record their conversations without their knowledge or official consent and to provoke them by using despicable methods". Al Jazeera also wrote to the office of the royal family, the Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ask them to respond to the allegations but has not yet received any replies. After an Arabic version of the film aired on Al Jazeera Arabic, Mohammad Saleh and Jamal al-Balushi (the brother of now-deceased Hilal) appeared on Bahraini television, saying that although they did make the recordings in 2011, what they said was false. Mohammad Saleh said "they all agreed to make the recordings and to include several false allegations in order to give them weight that would help international human rights groups build pressure on Bahrain's government and security agencies", the state Bahrain News Agency reported. According to John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer, Bahrain "thought they could divide their own opponents by having their opponents attack each other". "The Bahraini government believed it could pit Sunni fundamentalists against the Shia population and keep both sides divided that way, and that is not what happened," he tells Al Jazeera. "What happened was it further angered the Shia population and at the same time encouraged fundamentalism among the Sunni." 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/

This year, large parts of India have seen the worst drought in decades. The monsoon, which usually provides some relief, was weeks late and when it finally arrived, it was once again deficient, with less rainfall than expected. Despite India's economic growth in recent years, it remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. And that inequality can be seen in people's access to life's most basic necessity: water. A government report found that 600 million Indians - nearly half the population - are facing acute water shortages. While swimming pools in luxury hotels remain full, three quarters of the population do not have drinking water in their homes. The effects of the drought are seen most clearly in rural India. About 300,000 Indian farmers have killed themselves in the past 25 years, and many more have deserted their crops to move to cities in search of work, leaving behind the elderly. In the state of Maharashtra is one of the worst-affected regions. Villagers there sometimes wait for days before government tankers carrying water trucks, where they desperately need them. But the trucks only provide about 20 litres per person a day, which people ration for everything including drinking, cooking, bathing and house work. "Life is very hard because of the water situation," says Sitabai Gaikwad, a school teacher in Ahir Wadgaon village. "We have water when the tanker comes. People who can't manage to put their pipes in the tanker don't have water that day." "There are older people who don't manage to get water. Everyone's worried about themselves because of the water situation," she says. In Maharashtra, more than 6,000 tankers supply water to 15,000 villages every day - 1,000 of these are government tankers which provide water for free. The others are private operators who sell water to people and businesses. Villagers say the cost of buying water from them has escalated since the drought. "People buy water according to their finances," says Gaikwad. "Some buy it, but that is difficult because it costs us 900 rupees ($13) for a month." "When we don't have money to feed ourselves, when we don't have food and water, how can we pay that much for water?" she asks. Although the government tankers are meant to deliver water every day, villagers complain that this doesn't always happen. GPS tracking devices have been installed on all government trucks to monitor and ensure the water arrives. Meanwhile, across Maharashtra, many farmers are leaving their land and villages because of the lack of water, which in these farming communities, often means a lack of work. Panduram More, a labourer, left his 40,000 square metre cotton farm to move to the city of Aurangabad. "There is no work, so I had to migrate here and live in this small room," he says. "There is no rainfall, so the land is of no use. We can't grow anything." Talk to Al Jazeera In The Field, went to India's Maharashtra state to look at the effect the drought is having on the lives of ordinary people. - 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/

For generations, the Kalbelia tribe of Rajasthan in northwest India moved constantly from one place to another - the men catching snakes and trading venom, the women begging for charity. But in 1972, the Indian government introduced the Wildlife Act, forbidding snake possession and hunting, forcing a fundamental tribal re-think. With a key part of their way of life - their centuries-old practice of snake charming - effectively banned, the Kalbelia had to find new ways of making a living. Some became subsistence farmers, while others have reinvented themselves as public performers. Festivals and culture are an important part of local life in Rajasthan - and of its vital tourist industry. Kalbelian dance, with its distinctive twirling movements that resemble those of the snake, is both source of income and acclaim, within and outside India. I was born into a community that preferred not to have girl children ... Any extra girl child was killed soon after birth. Now that our girls learn Kalbelian dance, parents are happier with a female child. Gulabo, Kalbelia dancer "This song and dance, this art, it is our tradition," says one Kalbelia man. "During the royalty era, we were invited to palaces; kings and emperors called on us to perform for their guests." The Kalbelia have brought considerable prestige to Rajasthan. They have now become famous – regionally, nationally and internationally - and in 2010 gained a place on UNESCO's Intangible Heritage list. Dance is a key part of Kalbelian cultural identity and has also had a marked social impact on the lives of women and girls. "I was born into a community that preferred not to have girl children ... Any extra girl child was killed soon after birth." says Gulabo, a Kalbelia dancer who was buried alive the day she was born, until her mother saved her. "Now that our girls learn Kalbelian dance, parents are happier with a female child because girls can dance and that's a very good thing for us," she says. Gulabo now teaches Kalbelian dance and has a reputation as an international performer. Kalbelian songs and dances are part of an oral tradition, handed down from one generation to another. There are no real organised training systems, schools, manuscripts or texts to help teach the art. Many songs are taken from stories based on folklore and mythology - and singers also have a reputation for improvising during performances. "We don't practice or attend music lessons," says Mohini Devi, singer in a Kalbelia dance band. "Songs are made spontaneously, while sitting at home." In this film, we meet Rajasthan's Kalbelian dancers and musicians and hear the striking story of a community adapting from a nomadic way of life to meet the challenges of 21st Century India. - 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/

Iraq is emerging from more than a decade of intermittent conflict. People are rebuilding their cities and institutions. At the same time, they are also pursuing reconciliation and trying to reconstruct their national identity. Women hope they will be given more of an expanded role in the political sphere and that they will be given greater rights. But it has been an uphill battle. Iraq's penal code allows husbands to discipline their wives, and there is currently no law criminalising domestic violence. For almost a decade, women's rights groups have been pushing parliament to pass a law that would change that - but it has always stalled. "The law in Iraq doesn't give women their rights," says Lena, a domestic violence survivor whose abuse left her with physical and psychological ailments. We don't have laws in our society to prevent men from hurting women, and to protect women, and to put red lines for men not to cross. Lena, domestic violence survivor "I tried so many times to leave [my ex-husband] ... At the end of the day, I felt that I was going to die," she says. But the abuse was just the beginning of her ordeal. After she left her husband and filed a police report, he turned the tables against Lena and her family, accusing them of kidnapping him. At the end of the day, Lena was found guilty and spent 16 months in prison. Lena blames the wide-reaching corruption in the judicial system, "from the lowest clerk to the highest judge." She says Iraqi women who are unemployed or not well educated, especially those who have children, are forced to "bear everything". "We don't have laws in our society to prevent men from hurting women, and to protect women, and to put red lines for men not to cross," she says. There are no updated national figures for domestic violence in Iraq; the most recent data available, from 2012, estimated that one in five women were victims. Civil society groups say, based on the growing number of women seeking assistance, they believe the figure is much higher today. "The life, the traditions, is so hard on the woman, on the girl," says Hanna Edwar, a longtime activist and founder of a non-profit social services group called al-Ammal. She calls domestic violence "a national crisis" and attributes the increase to a number of factors, including political instability, poverty, conflict, outdated traditions and lack of rule of law. She says corruption also makes it difficult for victims and survivors to get justice. Edwar has taken the lead on the effort to raise awareness about domestic violence and is pushing to pass the law offering victims greater protection. "This year we are really very optimistic about it [passing]," she says. "Because it's not only our demand as civil society. It is now the demands of the government [as well]." In the meantime, many women like Lena are still awaiting recognition of the crimes committed against them. "When I talk about what happened to me, people dismiss it as just a story ... I have not been able to convince anyone in our government to change our laws to protect women," Lena says. "I have never received justice." - 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 Senegal, traditional wrestling has its roots in the culture and community of rural villages, particularly among the Serer people. What began as tribal preparations for battle developed into village ritual and soon a form of entertainment. Men traditionally fought at village festivals after the harvest season as a way of attracting women, proving their virility and bringing honour to their communities. But in the past 50 years, traditional Senegalese wrestling has grown exponentially to become a major national sport for both men and women - with celebrity fighters competing for big prize money, in large stadia and in front of thousands of fans. "We can say that it is not just a sport," says sociologist Aly Tandian. "It has always been a socially stimulating factor in the Senegalese society." "Today, there are villages that have become well known in all of Senegal because they have given birth to great wrestlers," he adds. Today, the professional wrestlers at major events - like "Bombardier" and Eumeu Sene - are household names, winning over $80,000 a fight. Up-and-coming fighters like "Lacrymogene", who we meet in this film, win more modest sums - from a few to a few hundred dollars. But the winnings mean that for some of the poorest Senegalese, wrestling can genuinely represent a means of clawing their way out of poverty. Traditional wrestling is part of a wider phenomenon of combat sports in West Africa, including in countries like Gambia, Guinea and Gabon. In Senegal, the sport has attracted both genders, with the women's game now popular and well respected in its own right. Olympic fighter Isabelle Sambou has won the African Championships nine times. Safiato Biola has competed in women's events in Europe and North Africa, and Anta Sambou says winning three golds at the 2017 Francophone Games has built her confidence and transformed her life. "Wrestling is part of our culture," says Isabelle. "If you wrestle when you're young, you can wrestle through your whole childhood, and as an adult you can still wrestle. Especially the girls, don't be afraid of a wrestler." "I love my achievements so much that it has made me stronger," she says. "I also represent a force in my village, and that has made me reach the top." In this film, we explore the popularity of traditional wrestling among Senegalese fighters and fans alike, men and women, urban and rural - from small village festivals to arena events in the capital, Dakar. We look at wrestling as an expression of pride and cultural identity but also to show how sport - at even the lowest levels - can mean the difference for some between modest, local success and a miserable existence on the margins of society. As Tandian says, "There are certain places, like the suburbs of Dakar, where young people only have two options: wrestling or leaving the country." - 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 United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali, also known as MINUSMA, faces unprecedented challenges. Now in its sixth year, it is caught in the middle of an unfolding spiral of violence that is moving closer to the capital and that has already been spreading to neighbouring countries. The initial violence took off shortly after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya in 2011. Armed groups and weapons entered Mali from the north, intersecting with already existing tensions between groups of different ethnic and religious belonging. The conflict has since changed and spread - now overtaking parts of central Mali. "The international community needs to be more interested in what is happening in Mali," Mahamat Saleh Annadif, the special representative of the UN secretary-general and head of MINUSMA, tells Al Jazeera. "We say we have wiped out the Islamic State in Iraq, in Syria. Do people ask the question where these people are going?" asks Annadif. "There is a breeze going towards the Sahel." As the president of Mali used to say: Mali for the moment is a dam, if it gives in, it risks invading the rest of Africa as well as Europe. Mahamat Saleh Annadif, Head of MINUSMA, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali Armed groups such as ISIL and al-Qaeda are gaining strength in Mali. New armed groups have entered the fray, some taking advantage of longstanding pastoral and inter-communal tensions, causing deadly violence to escalate between the Fulani and Dogon communities. "Inter-communal conflict has always existed. It is part of the society. But in the past, there were the traditional mechanisms ... to manage this conflict," says Annadif. "The terrorists came, they chased out all these people ... Today the majority of the religious leaders of these customary chiefs are in the big cities in the capitals and they [armed groups] have taken hostages of these communities." Annadif says the international community must "pool our resources" and do more to stem the rising tide of violence in the Sahel. He warns that a failure to do so would have wide-reaching effects. "As the president of Mali used to say: Mali for the moment is a dam, if it gives in, it risks invading the rest of Africa as well as Europe," he says. "The Sahel is becoming an open military arsenal. There are more than 60 million weapons circulating in the Sahel. If the Europeans and the other powers are not stopping it, it is there in the Sahel, that's what will obviously contaminate Europe and contaminate the rest of the world." According to Annadif, the crisis is complex and while the Malian army is in the process of reconstituting itself, it has suffered a shock and needs to be supported. "The day we help the Malian security forces to redeploy to the territories, these terrorists will have no place, it will be like when they fled Iraq, like they fled Syria, like fleeing Libya. They will flee to some other place," he says. "That's why it is extremely important for the international community to stand together and take seriously what is happening in Mali, which is contaminating the entire Sahel." He believes the 2015 peace accord signed between the Malian government and some armed groups is the best way for the country to achieve peace, even though he admits there have been some delays in its implementation. "The agreement for peace and reconciliation has no alternative," he says. "Today it is the only tool that exists to help Malians make peace. But we need to push Malians to accelerate the pace of its implementation." The UN secretary-general has called on MINUSMA to change its priority, focusing on the 2015 peace agreement and helping the state to re-establish its control over the centre of the country. But MINUSMA also faces challenges unlike other peacekeeping missions: it costs $1bn and is currently the deadliest mission in peacekeeping history - with nearly 200 soldiers killed since 2013. Some UN peacekeepers are now also leaving, including those from the Netherlands who are set to withdraw. "I dare to hope that this presence of the MINUSMA is only temporary, that it will be as short as possible and that the Malians can find this national consensus, that they can restructure their army and they can take control of their destiny," Annadif says. "We still need the United Nations. Peace missions are still needed, but peace missions alone can not do." - 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 is an air crash a planned suicide mission and when is it the result of a disastrous technical fault? On the morning of October 31, 1999, the EgyptAir Flight 990, a Boeing 767, left John F Kennedy (JFK) International Airport for Cairo. Soon after take-off, it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 217 passengers. Nearly two decades on, the question that still has not been convincingly answered is 'why'?. The initial US investigation blamed the co-pilot and concluded the crash was "as a result of the relief first officer's flight control inputs", adding that the reason for his actions "was not determined". But today the evidence behind this conclusion looks far from convincing, as this Al Jazeera World investigation exposes. In 1999, the Egyptian government handed over the task of investigating the crash to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the United States, a Washington-based organisation charged with investigating transportation accidents, including air crashes. Philip Riddell, an aerospace engineer and pilot with more than 50 years of experience, told Al Jazeera that the NTSB investigation was problematic. "I thought the NTSB report was flawed in a number of areas. They kind of jumped on the conclusion that the handling pilot was mishandling the aircraft with a finger pointed at suicide," Riddell said, adding that the agency may have "neglected to look at other relevant evidence that was found". The crash happened at a time of growing apprehension in the US about so-called "terrorism" and the appointed US investigation firmly concluded the co-pilot was responsible for bringing the plane down. That conclusion was based on audio on the Cockpit Voice Recorder, where the relief First Officer, Gameel al-Batouti, is heard calling on God as he tries to correct the 767 from its sudden sharp descent. The NTSB investigation interpreted this as the final prayer of a man intent on suicide and mass murder, rather than a man begging for divine intervention to save the aircraft. While the NTSB refused to speak to Al Jazeera, its chairman at the time of the accident, Jim Hall, agreed to be interviewed for this documentary. "We were asked to take this investigation to begin with. We did it … and a good job was done by the investigators. The NTSB has a worldwide reputation for factual investigations and where we have problems with staff in terms of workload, we just extend the time for the investigation," Hall said. Egypt issued a furious rebuttal of the US report and the FBI and other US agencies also later cast doubt on its conclusions. Over the years these doubts persisted - but it was only some 14 years later, in 2014, when the US aviation authorities demanded a technical change to all Boeing 767s, that these suspicions ramped up. Al Jazeera's Neil Cairns conducted an in-depth examination of inconsistencies within the NTSB report - starting with evidence of technical problems reported with the same Boeing 767 plane that had emerged the day before the crash. In 2000, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued airworthiness directives for urgent relevant checks to be made on all 767s. It took another 14 years for the FAA to issue fresh directives which pointed to a technical problem with this model of aircraft. After the 2014 directives, Boeing made changes to its own systems. "Consequently Boeing actually bought out a completely new system to replace the bellcrank system," Riddell explained. American accident investigator Pat Diggins makes a key point about the influence of manufacturers on federal agencies. "The manufacturer, the larger it is, the larger the arms and the reaches are to it. I mean … if you look at Boeing, look at how far-reaching their capabilities are to … They have more government solicitors in Washington DC that help them get their products approved. The majority of their company sells to the United States government," said Diggins. The Boeing 737 Max 8 jet crashes in Jakarta in 2018 and Addis Ababa in 2019 have resulted in investigations into this model of aircraft. Boeing has already conceded mistakes were made in launching this model. But there have been no such concessions from anyone regarding Flight 990, and after nearly 20 years, there is no resolution for the bereaved families, not least that of First Officer Gameel al-Batouti. - 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's been two years since Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MBS) ascended to power. Many consider him to be the kingdom's de facto ruler. A lot of people in the West had pinned their hopes on the young reformist prince and what they described as his bold vision for Saudi Arabia. But with the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the persecution of activists and feminists, and the jailing of human rights defenders, including Saudi Muslim leader Salman al-Awdah, many find his leadership decisions concerning. "The promise was to reform the social fabric in Saudi Arabia, was to diversify the Saudi economy and to promote moderate Islam," says Abdullah Alaoudh, a scholar, rights advocate and the son of al-Awdah. "What has been done is actually the opposite of all these three different aspects," he tells Al Jazeera. Alaoudh, a senior fellow at Georgetown University in the US, is sceptical of what he calls MBS's "superficial reforms" in Saudi Arabia, including lifting a driving ban on women, because this has happened in the midst of other basic rights and liberties being taken away. He says the reforms are akin to a "PR campaign" for MBS who "took advantage of a lot of people in the West not knowing the dynamics of the Saudi society". "[MBS has] attacked the moderate voices of the kingdom; the voices that have been spearheading the campaign against extremism, terrorism in the kingdom," Alaoudh says. "Look at the liberals, the feminists, the Shia, the Sunni, the Islamists, the different women, men. The leaders of all these segments of Saudi society all have been either put in jail, silenced, intimidated or threatened in one way or another. Even the tribal leaders in Saudi Arabia. Even his own family." Alaoudh calls the murder of Khashoggi "horrible" but says it was also a "wake-up call" for the Saudi public, the international community and global media. "The case of Khashoggi is actually representative of the human rights cases in Saudi Arabia ... The same minds that treated Jamal Khashoggi with brutality, with a gruesome killing, are still torturing women human rights defenders, feminists, the moderate Muslims, and the economists in Saudi Arabia." Alaoudh says he remains concerned for his own safety and the safety of his father, who was arrested after sending out a tweet - an apparent call for reconciliation - at the start of the Saudi blockade on Qatar in 2017. Calling his father a "religious democrat" and "an icon of enlightenment, of moderate Islam", Alaoudh says these are the types of discourse MBS seeks to clamp down on because he fears it the most. Asked whether he believes that his father's death penalty would be executed, Alaoudh says: "Did we ever think that those who were sent to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul will execute that horrible, gruesome killing of my friend Jamal Khashoggi? If those who killed Jamal Khashoggi were just rogue operatives, the head of that rogue operation, is it still in force? Is it still administering and managing the situation in Saudi Arabia? So I really can't expect anything." Alaoudh says his larger fear is for the future of his country, where extreme voices have been empowered while those seeking to uphold basic rights and liberties are targeted or tortured or killed. "My father is the most popular figure in the kingdom and he was treated like that. So just imagine those who are less known or even not known to the public or to the international media, what would they do? How would they treat such people?" But he says there is more to the country than those who control it today. "MBS is not Saudi Arabia. MBS is not the history of Saudi Arabia. MBS is not his own royal family and MBS is not the Saudi public," he says. "So if you [the West] want to really establish a real alliance with Saudi Arabia, if you want to make sure that you have a stable relationship, if you want to have a long term alliance, you have to establish that with the Saudi public who will be there forever." -- 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/

"Protecting a library is not an easy task," says Mustafa Jahic, "especially during wartime." It was 1992, the siege of Sarajevo had begun, and Jahic - then the director of the Gazi Husrev-Beg public library - had in his care a priceless, ancient collection of hand-written books and illuminated manuscripts. "The Gazi Husrev-Beg library contains the memories of all the generations of the last 1,000 years. More than 100,000 items. Everything from manuscripts to printed books," says Osman Lavic, the library's keeper of manuscripts. "Some were written by Arabs, perhaps in Fez or Baghdad, and then rewritten by a Turk living in the Caucasian Republic and then purchased by Bosnians. So if you followed the trail of the books you’d see the beauty in their diversity, their multi-ethnic and multicultural nature," he says. But when the city was attacked by the Serbian army, the preservation of books and manuscripts became the least of peoples' problems. Bosnia's National Library was shelled and burned to the ground, its entire contents destroyed. "The culture of our people, the identity, the history of Bosnia, for centuries in one place. And suddenly it was being swallowed by the fire and the flames," says firefighter Ismet Tucak, who responded to the blaze at the National Library. Fearing the Gazi Husrev-Beg library would be attacked next, Jahic's staff took the momentous decision to move their most precious works to safety. Dodging Serbian snipers and street violence, the small band of book-lovers - including the cleaner and the Congolese nightwatchman - moved the manuscripts, one box at a time, to preserve a valuable part of their written history. "As we were carrying the boxes, Sarajevo was under shell fire," cleaner Dzehva Dudo recalls. "We were running from one building to another." Jahic remembers the team working "discretely, without much talking". "The conditions of war are very special. You have to take decisions at every moment. You improvise," he says. In a brave act of collective personal defiance and self-sacrifice, the library staff risked their lives to rescue over 10,000 precious books and manuscripts while the Bosnian War raged around them. "It would have been better to die together with the books than to live without them," says Abbas Lutumba Husein, who was the night-watchman at the time. The others agree. "The books are as important as people," Dudo says. "They are the most important things in the city of Sarajevo." - 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/

US President Donald Trump's "deal of the century" - his administration's proposal for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - kicked into gear in Manama, Bahrain this week as officials from the region gathered for the so-called 'Peace to Prosperity' workshop. Already, sceptics are voicing concern, saying the American side is using money to bribe the Palestinians. The initial economic stage of the deal hopes to drum up $50bn in investment, money that primarily is expected to come from other Arab nations, principally in the Gulf. Participants of the Manama meeting will discuss projects and conditions for investments in more detail. Then, based on the outcome of this meeting, the next step would be to fashion a political settlement that would translate financial commitments into reality on the ground in Palestine. However, Palestinians have derided the plan as an "economy first" approach that is doomed to fail. The Palestinian Authority is arguing for a reverse order: a political settlement first, money later - an approach that would tackle the difficult questions of establishing a Palestinians state, end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, and allow refugees to return. Palestinian leaders boycotted the June 25 and 26 meeting, saying the gathering circumvents a political settlement based on a two-state solution, and is an ill-fated attempt by the US administration to "liquidate" the Palestinian cause. However, the senior adviser to the US president and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner - who has been tasked with leading the process - told Al Jazeera the reaction was "fairly predictable". He said believed the event would be a success despite the boycott, citing the presence of delegates from regional countries and a large number of international investors. "What [the Palestinian leadership] have been saying is a lot of hot rhetoric about rejecting everything before they even see it, which is, in my opinion, not a very responsible position." When questioned why the proposal did not want to settle some of the political questions that could stave off conflict before it pours money into infrastructure, Kushner said: "that's been the traditional thinking, and that has not worked". "The president is not a traditional politician. He wants to do things in a different way. If we can get people through this process to look at this problem differently, to see what the future could be, then I think that could be a very very successful thing." Outlining the Trump administration's "different" approach, he said: "What we have tried to do is help people identify what a future could look like. And hopefully we get people to all agree ... and then we get people to look at, maybe, let's commit to the future in the event that there is a peace agreement. Perhaps that will create a different condition through which people can then approach some of these political issues that have been unresolvable for a very long time." Kushner called the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative "a great effort" but said it is not possible to solve the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a deal along those lines. "I think we all have to recognise that if there ever is a deal, it's not going to be along the lines of the Arab peace initiative. It will be somewhere between the Arab peace initiative and somewhere between the Israeli position," he said. He also defended Trump's 2017 decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, saying: "Israel is a sovereign nation; a sovereign nation has the right to determine where their capital is and America has the right to recognise the decision". He said the relocation of the embassy should not affect final-status negotiations with the Palestinians. Kushner said that on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, there are voices who accuse the other of having no interest in peace. But he added that peace needs to come from compromise and negotiation. "If we want to find a pathway forward, it means that both sides need to find a place where they both feel that they can gain more than they give, and move forward and have the opportunities to live better lives," he said. - 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/

Albania was hoping to be asked to start European Union membership talks this month but that now seems unlikely to happen. EU leaders want to see a country with stable democratic institutions, but in the past week, President Ilir Meta has cancelled local elections that were scheduled for the end of the month because the opposition Democratic Party refuses to take part in them. Making matters worse, the ruling Socialist Party has questioned Meta's constitutional authority to change the date. There is no constitutional court to rule on the matter, because its judges' finances are being investigated and they are suspended. So Albania presents a picture of anything but a stable democratic state, which is a precondition of EU membership. Meta says it will harm the chances of joining the EU if left unchanged. "If the crisis is going to last, the chances will be undermined for years, not for months. This is clear," he told Al Jazeera, saying that the country's ability to demonstrate that it can hold free and fair elections will be the determining factor. "If we do not show normality and progress now related to the future of general local elections, it will be a disaster." He defends his decision to cancel elections scheduled for June 30, and says it can help bring all parties to the table. "I am sure I have done the best to avoid this fuller escalation of the conflict between the government and the opposition and to give to both sides the possibility to calm down, to reflect, and to enter soon in the local [elections] for the best interests of all Albanians."

Albania's overarching national goal is to join the European Union. But Prime Minister Edi Rama does not think the country is ready for membership, partly because its political institutions are seen as underdeveloped. That has been on display in the past week as political parties have disagreed on when to hold nationwide local elections. They were scheduled for June 30, but the opposition Democratic Party now wants that date pushed back and has not fielded mayoral candidates. The ruling Socialists of Edi Rama want to proceed regardless with the candidates they have registered. The deadlock is part of a growing political crisis; in February, the opposition Democratic Party withdrew from parliament and supporters took to organising in the streets. Weeks of anti-government protests have called for Rama to step down, accusing him of corruption and election fraud, and early elections. In an interview with Al Jazeera, Rama said that changing the election date would, in fact, undermine Albania's democracy. President Ilir Meta had cancelled the elections, stating that current conditions do not allow for a fair and inclusive process and would undermine accession talks with the EU. "It's not what Albania deserves and it's not what the future is about. Because if we set a precedent that a party, two parties, three parties, one side, decide to impose the disruption and election terms can be decided upon disruption then we will have it for many years to come," Rama said. "In the end, elections are not made for the politicians to decide, it's made for the people to decide about the politicians ... Escaping this judgement or transforming this very basic element of our democratic life, it means going in a direction which is not our future, it's a past." Still, the deadlock has added to scepticism in the EU about whether Albania is ready to join it. A 2019 European Commission report states that Albania has made important reforms but still must work to address issues such as corruption and organised crime. It says corruption is still "prevalent in many areas and remains an issue of concern". Rama acknowledges the problem. "I think Albania has a problem with organised crime and corruption as every country that is not yet a modern, functioning state. That's why we are in this process, that's why we are not members of EU, or that's why I am not pretending that it's an injustice that we are not members today. We need to prepare, we need to modernise, and fighting corruption and fighting organised crime is about very strong will, but it's about very strong institutions and very strong mechanisms and functioning in every direction," he said. He says there is a lot of work to be done. "If I turn my head five years and a half ago and I see from where we come, we have done impressively. But if I see forward, where we want to go and where I am to bring the country, there is much more to do." He maintains that if accession talks are successful, both Albania and the EU will benefit. "Albania and the western Balkans are surrounded by EU borders so we are somehow an organ of a body that is dragging out of the body, but is not simply fading away but it is there. So the choice is very simple; let this organ bleed and create troubles to the whole body ... or help this organ to integrate and help the body to get the organ in," he said. "So it's not about enlargement, it's about completion, it's about a very important piece of the puzzle .... [It is] an area ... within the European Union that should not be left as an open space for other actors that may not be very keen to see the European Union progress and prosper."