Al Jazeera World

Filmmaker: Bashar Ghannam Weddings are a cause for celebration everywhere in the world. For Palestinians, they can be a way of keeping their valuable traditions alive and helping to deal with life under Israeli occupation. But for the women in this film, that day may never come because their fiances are serving life sentences in Israeli jails. "The positive side of being in prison is that it helped us become closer," says Ahlam Ahmed al-Tamimi, a former prisoner who was engaged to her cousin Nizar al-Tamimi in 2005 while they were both serving life sentences. They eventually married after being released during the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011. But at the time, Ahlam describes how their very relationship was a symbol of resistance. "I resisted the occupation with my love and my engagement to this prisoner. Through the engagement, the prisoner tells the occupier that his life continues," says Ahlam. Ahlam al-Tamimi served eight years of a life sentence for her role in a bombing in 2001 that killed 15 people and wounded 130. She got engaged to her cousin, Nizar, while he too was serving a life sentence, for killing an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank. The US now wants to extradite Ahlam from Jordan, where she now lives, because US citizens were killed in the 2001 bombing; and she is on an FBI 'most-wanted' list. The two other women, Ghufran al-Zamal and Amna al-Jayousi, have more complex stories - and little chance of a similar outcome, yet they remain hopeful. Amna was already legally married to Ahmed al-Jayoussi who was arrested for helping manufacture suicide belts, a week before their planned wedding ceremony in 2002. But despite pressure from her extended family to abandon Ahmed in prison, Amna's commitment to him is unwavering, even after 17 years. "I booked an 'afterlife husband', a husband for life and for afterlife....Ahmed and I are not just a couple. We are one soul in two bodies," she says. Ghufran, on the other hand, had never even met Hassan Salameh when she proposed marriage to him. He was in prison, serving 48 life sentences for his part in fatal attacks in Jerusalem in 1996. But inspired by Ahlam and Nizar's experience, she initiated the connection with Hassan through Ahlam. "It was difficult for me as a woman to take the first step, to discuss this subject and break social taboos by proposing to a man," she explains. Ghufran was familiar with Hassan's case and in her letters she says, "As he considered his sentence part of a sacrifice, I said I wanted to share it with him and asked him not to deny me this happiness...I wrote that I would share his suffering, his pain and his life." Initially, Hassan refused to allow Ghufran to get mixed up in his life and imprisonment - but he later agreed when Ahlam convinced him that "engagement would be a beam of light in a dark place." While sometimes letters can take up to a year to arrive, Ghufran and Hassan have created their own world which she says transcends time and space: "We challenged our circumstances and, for us, prison didn't exit...we planned for our future life and thought about everything. We defied this reality," contends Ghufran. "The prison management make fun of prisoners' engagement," explains Ahlam...or "prevent the detainee from getting the letter...Sometimes the security agent would tell me, 'your fiance fainted while in hunger strike' or that they beat him until bleeding, and it's all fake news." "The purpose is to keep us under constant stress," she adds. According to the Jerusalem-based human rights organisation B'tselem, in February 2019, there were over 5,000 Palestinians languishing in Israeli prisons. The idea of women committing to men in prison with long sentences is a little-known aspect of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as well as an intensely personal and complex one. Regardless of what the men may have done to be handed their multiple life sentences, Ahlam, Ghofran and Amna's unrelenting loyalty to them is inseparable from their desire for a Palestinian homeland, the personal and the political completely intertwined. - 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/

Morocco, like much of North Africa, has often been portrayed in the West as mysterious and exotic, a land of belly dancers, enticement and Arab enchantment. This outmoded stereotype is firmly laid to rest by the country's burgeoning combat sports scene. In Casablanca Fight Club, the regional qualifying stage of the Moroccan amateur boxing championships is just weeks away and the young boxers at the Bateha club are training for the biggest fights of their lives. It's here that a 75-year-old parking attendant and former Moroccan featherweight champion, Saleh Rouman, mentors fresh young boxing talent. "There are kids without any education or trade," explains Saleh, Bateha boxing club's head coach. "I save them from the street and encourage them to be productive. I point them in the right direction, but in the end it's up to them. I do my best with them." Saleh founded Bateha in 1979 and his honours board boasts national champions. He gets a government subsidy for rent and electricity but has to fund the rest from his day job, devoting all his free time to nurturing young boxers in the modest Derb Ghallef area of town. His club was the first in Casablanca to admit female fighters and Sanaa Akeel was a four-time national champion. While Saleh's always on the lookout for talent from the outside, most of his members are from Derb Ghallef and nearby areas. Morocco has produced several combat sport champions, including kick-boxer Badar Hari and boxer Mohammed Rabii. Rabii won world super-welterweight gold in Doha and Olympic bronze in Rio. Weight is as important to a boxer as for a jockey in horse racing. And with the qualifying stages for the national championships around the corner, everyone at Bateha needs to be the right weight for their class. That's a problem for 19-year-old Omaima Haji who currently weighs 71.6 but needs to be under 69 kilos to qualify as a welterweight. She doesn't want to fight heavier, middleweight girls, fearing she may be outclassed. "I gained four kilos from January to April," explains Oumaima. "I registered in the 69 kilo class, but my weight now is 75. Uncle Saleh advised me to register as a middleweight but I refused." Fifteen-year-old Marwan Keroual has the opposite problem. He's never yet had a competitive fight but time is running out and he's still too light to compete as a junior pinweight. He's also performing poorly at school, putting extra parental pressure on him to balance study with training. "All my attention is on this fight. I have to win," says Marwan, who's determined to prove himself. "I want to improve my life through boxing and be a champion like Rabii." Will Marwan win his first fight? And will Oumaima Haji even make the weight? Casablanca Fight Club follows the trials and tribulations of the build up to the big day, and the blood, sweat and tears in the ring, in this compelling "life-in-the-raw" story of passionate young fighters and their inspiring, gnarled old coach. - 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/

Filmmaker: Mohamed Kenawi As long as there is war, poverty and insecurity in Africa and the Middle East, migrants and refugees will try and seek a better life in Europe. For many years now, Italy has been one of the principal destinations for many and that has included the dangerous sea crossing over the Mediterranean. Egyptian refugee Mostafa Hassan was lucky to arrive in Rome at all in 2015, as one of only 27 survivors of the biggest Mediterranean disasters since World War II. He recalls one frightful day on an overloaded boat, its sinking and subsequent drowning - a regular occurrence in the Mediterranean in recent years. "At night, we all went to sleep. When I woke up in the morning the boat was unstable. Everyone was scared. Then it started to lean to one side. There were a lot of us and it was overloaded," he says. "People started to fall into the water. I saw bodies floating on the water before I jumped in ... I pushed the bodies away so I could swim. The boat sank. I swam until help arrived. They rescued survivors but the dead remained in the water. I don't know what happened to them." According to UN figures, immigration to Europe is falling year-on-year. But by the first week of April 2019, there had still been 12,350 arrivals into Europe by sea, with 289 fatalities. One in six refugees arriving in Italy is now aged under 18. Under-aged migrants - or minors - like Mostafa who was 17 at the time, are taken to reception centres where they're looked after by people like Eraldo Andi. Andi runs a primary reception centre for minors and provides support, education and shelter. "I don't just feel responsible for them at the centre. I usually help them after they leave. So I study teenage immigration. I contact experts in minors' issues hoping to know more about the dangers and problems they face and the best solutions," says Andi, who's become a guardian angel for refugees. Unfortunately, state support ends when these young people turn 18 and are left to fend for themselves on the street. "When I turned 18, I only had my bag and didn't know where to go. I didn't have a job, home, money or anything. I took my papers from the centre, packed my clothes and called a friend," says Mostafa. Only 10 percent of young people like Mostafa eventually settle legally in Italy. The authorities lose track of the rest, as they move on to northern Europe or disappear into the margins of society where a world of illegal activity can await them. "The big problem is that the economic situation here is constantly deteriorating," says Andi. "Unemployment is high and many Italian families live in poverty. If Italians don't have jobs, foreigners won't either." In addition to the financial, language, housing and social challenges migrants face, they also struggle with isolation which can lead to psychological distress. "I think their poor social status causes them psychological problems," explains psychotherapist Carmela Palazzo. "Instead of being happy to turn 18 they get desperate because they know they'll end up on the streets." That can result in a mental breakdown, such as the one Mostafa witnessed with his twin brother Mahmoud. "He used to think a lot, not sleep enough and this made him unstable. I'd talk to him about something but he'd talk about something else," says Mostafa. "He'd get nervous and scream. He was in hospital for six months. He still has treatment but has left hospital now. The Italian government will pay for his treatment until he's 21. They always follow up with him." Despite his hardships, he remains hopeful about the future, "I wish I could work, make some money and buy a house in Egypt for me and my brother. I want him to get married and secure his future. I want to build my future as well." 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/

Alphonse Etienne Dinet was a French artist from a wealthy background in 19th-century Paris who painted in what was called the Orientalist style, normally a Western view of the Middle East and North Africa which stereotyped its people as "wild" and "exotic". Edward Said's 1978 book, Orientalism, caused critics and historians to re-appraise their view of this style, as Said argued it represented a patronising, colonial attitude towards the life, culture and people of the Middle East. But unlike most Orientalist painters, Dinet travelled frequently to North Africa, and his work, far from being colonial in outlook, came to be seen as a true and sympathetic depiction of life in the Arab world. Since Dinet's death nine decades ago, his distinctive paintings have graced museums, art galleries and collections all over the world.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed since South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013, and millions more have been forced to flee their homes. On one side of the conflict are troops and militias backing President Salva Kiir. On the other, those supporting former Vice President Riek Machar. A peace deal was signed in 2018 to end the war, but the situation is far from settled, with atrocities having been committed by both sides, and continued fighting between the government and armed groups. In February 2019, the United Nations Human Rights Council released a report describing what it believes is funding the war: the country's rich oil industry. It says that the state-owned Nilepet oil company "has diverted oil revenues which should be shared with states into the coffers of elites in the government," and that its operations "have been characterised by a total lack of transparency and independent oversight." According to the report, "oil revenues and income from other natural resources have continued to fund the war, enabling its continuation and the resulting human rights violations." The country's oil sector is supervised by the minister of petroleum, Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, who denies the UN's allegations and others. "I have been in the Ministry of Petroleum since 2016 and I can assure you there is no single dollar that has been used to buy arms in the ministry and even in the country," he told Al Jazeera. "The focus is peace, peace, peace. We are not investing in war and we will not at all invest in war ... Nilepet has not been financing any activities that is related to violence in the country." He says that expanding the country's oil production - oil makes up 60 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and almost all of its exports - and attracting foreign investors, will increase the money available for development projects. "Now myself and my colleagues in the government, we are also working to make sure that the production is increased, and we resume the oil blocks that has been dormant for the last five years, this is also going to be translated into money, so that we can have more money and then we will provide services to the people of South Sudan," he said. But with a lack of transparency - one organisation obtained secret documents suggesting that Nilepet paid $80m to war-related officials and activities over a 15-month period beginning in March 2014 - the concern is that these expansions would simply deepen corruption. South Sudan ranks 178 out of 180 countries on Transparency International's corruption index. But Gatkuoth says South Sudan's president has initiatives to address these issues. "Corruption is everywhere in the world but the most important thing is how you deal with it," he said. "People are being dismissed, people are being held accountable ... We have been actually really targeting people who have been actually involved in corruption and they are in jail and they are prosecuted. To me, the president is doing exactly the right thing and we are open book. In the Ministry of Petroleum or Finance or the whole government, we are open book." - 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 Istanbul was at the heart of the Ottoman Empire, it was one of the most ethnically diverse cities in history; Rebetiko was one of many cultural and musical variations. However, after the founding of Turkey in the early 20th century, most of the city's minorities slowly disappeared and were gradually replaced by Kurds and other economic migrants from Anatolia. Turkey had begun its transformation itself from an agricultural to an industrial economy; a change that would become more prominent from the 1950s onwards. But all these groups had already left their indelible cultural mark on a country where musical influences come from Greece, the Balkans, Egypt, Iraq, Armenia, Spain, medieval European romance, seventeenth century Islamic chant - as well as traditional Ottoman folk music, the western classical tradition and contemporary pop music. Nearly all these ethnic groups are now gone. Ethnic Greeks descended from the Byzantine Christians (known as Rûm under Ottoman rule) left in the 1923 population exchange and 1955 riots - but not before Rebetiko, a kind of Greek blues, had become hugely popular. The Sephardic Jews, whose ancestors had fled fifteenth century Spain, gradually emigrated to Israel - but had kept its Ladino language and music alive and its Andalusian, Gypsy, Balkan and Middle Eastern melodies and rhythms were hugely popular in Turkey. Attaturk banned traditional Ottoman music in 1934 so Turks tuned to Arabic radio, leading to the rise of Arabesque music in the 1970s; and there are still prolific and popular Arabesque musicians in Istanbul today. The Armenian composer Komitas was once compared to Bartok and impressed Claude Debussy. He was traumatised by the ethnic cleansing of the First World War but had already collected and transcribed over 3,000 pieces of Armenian folk music and published the very first collection of Kurdish folk song.

Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive footage that proves the presence of child soldiers in the recruitment camps of the Saudi-UAE-led coalition fighting in Yemen. The children, desperately poor, are being recruited to fight along the Saudi border to defend it from the Houthis, a rebel group that overran the capital, Sanaa, and large swaths of Yemen's northwest in 2014. In 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) formed a coalition to overthrow the Houthis - plunging Yemen into a ruinous war - supported by forces loyal to the country's internationally recognised government. The conflict has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis, pushing Yemen to the brink of famine and leaving about 80 percent of its population - 24 million people - in need of humanitarian assistance. However, many children face an even worse reality: being recruited by either warring side to fight in the conflict.

Amnesty International has worked to hold governments accountable for human rights violations for nearly 60 years, and it is now giving a critical look at its own organisation. Following the suicide of a staff member, Amnesty commissioned an independent review of its company culture, which found that some of its staff have been victims of bullying, public humiliation, discrimination, and abuses of power, and that these issues threaten the organisation's credibility. The report surveyed hundreds of employees as part of its investigation and found widespread mismanagement and a "toxic" work environment. According to the report, 39 percent of staff had developed mental or physical health issues because of working there, and 65 percent didn't believe their well-being was a priority for Amnesty. "I think this was a problem that was left festering for decades," Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty's secretary-general, told Al Jazeera. "While we are winning battles, we are losing the war. And that contributes to a very stressful environment because all the folks that work at Amnesty are passionate, committed ... and they also understand that while we are winning here and there and important battles, they can see that human rights is slipping away from us." Naidoo, who began his role in August last year, is looking to address these issues quickly. He said these problems, in part, come from the inherently stressful nature of their work, as well as from an outdated management structure and the company's failure to prioritise its staff's well-being. "Our organisation, set up in 1961, has added one layer of complexity after the other as it's evolved, and to be honest we need a complete reorganising because, in fact, the very structure of Amnesty right now is a source of certain conflicts and tensions that we need to fix urgently," he said. He pointed out that Amnesty chose to make the report public, and that all seven members of its senior leadership team have accepted responsibility and offered to resign. To him, this transparency is a good first step. "I am not saying it's going to be easy for us to recalibrate and move forward with a healing approach, if you want, but the commitment is there from myself, the board, and all parts of the organisation and we are focused on acting on it," he said. "One year won't sort everything out. But the term 'toxic' is quite a loaded word. I think within a year, I want that word off the table." Until then, he recognises how the report bears weight on Amnesty's mission. "I take the approach as the leadership of Amnesty at the board level and so on that given our values, given what we stand for, one case or two cases of racism or sexism or bullying are one case too many." - 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 October 2, 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist working in the US for the Washington Post, entered his country's consulate in Istanbul to process paperwork - and was never seen again. On the same day, a 15-man Saudi hit squad had allegedly flown to Istanbul. All the evidence points to Khashoggi's murder, suggesting that his body was first dismembered and then disposed of. The killing of the well-known journalist and critic of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has resonated around the world, both as an attack on media freedom and as a shocking insight into the workings of a secretive and repressive regime. The horrific story has been well documented in the media but there are still pieces missing and serious questions remaining unanswered: What happened to the body? Why did two weeks pass before Turkish investigators were allowed into the consulate to examine forensic evidence? And who was ultimately responsible for the killing? Al Jazeera Arabic's Tamer Almisshal goes to Istanbul to try and find answers. He has pieced together the chronology of events - and examined the theories as to what may have happened to Khashoggi's body. In mid-March, Saudi Arabia announced it had started court proceedings against those it believes were involved. The Kingdom still refuses to agree to a UN-led investigation, and despite the volume of powerful evidence, we still don't know whether those ultimately responsible for Khashoggi's death will ever be openly held to account. - 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 November 1979, a group of Iranian students took over the United States embassy in Tehran. Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days, in what became the longest hostage crisis in modern history. The students were part of a revolution that overthrew the Shah and replaced his government with the Islamic Republic just months earlier. Masoumeh Ebtekar, a prominent figure at the time, was both spokeswoman and translator for the students. Asked by Al Jazeera whether she has any regrets about her involvement with the hostage incident, the Iranian vice president for Women and Family Affairs remains resilient about the intention behind the students' actions. "I don't think any of the students have any regrets because they felt that was a natural reaction. Any human being reacts to being subjugated to slavery ... being subjugated to foreign domination. Maybe the only concern or regret that they had was that it could have been resolved quicker," she says. The students had demanded the US government deport the Shah back to Iran to stand trial. The hostages were eventually released in January 1981 and the crisis was over - but not Ebtekar's career. After years in academia, she became Iran's third female member of cabinet in its history, when she was appointed as head of the Department of Environment during former President Mohammad Khatami's government. Ebtekar has also served as Tehran's city councilwoman. In August 2017, President Hassan Rouhani appointed her vice president for Women and Family Affairs. Forty years after the Iranian revolution, Ebtekar remains a strong believer of the principles she fought for. Literacy rates and a younger generation of females encouraged to attend both school and university are badges of improvement and Ebtekar claims that challenges are noted and being systematically addressed. "On the issue of education, the challenge that we have is that we have not addressed life skills properly in our education system," says Ebtekar. "This is something that we are focusing on specifically. For example, in the elementary or secondary stages, with the college and university system, we're working on upgrading communication skills among youth. Upgrading their skills to deal with their citizen rights and critical thought. These are life skills which are very important for the young generation." As Iran suffers an ongoing economic crisis and sanctions, "again, on behalf of the United States government", how long can the Iranian people expect to wait for job creation and a release to the stifling economic pressure? "Supporting entrepreneurship has been a strategy for us. We have a nationwide project implemented to train young women, particularly women with college degrees, on entrepreneurship skills; 18,000 billion tomans have been given in villages," says Ebtekar of the Iranian government's plans to ease economic hardships. "I think that people have learned how to increase their resilience in difficult times," she continues. "This nation has withstood a war in which the whole world was practically against Iran when Saddam [Hussein] attacked. They have learned to be patient and to strengthen their internal capacities." - 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 2011 Arab Spring had seen the end of President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule and within 18 months, Mohamed Morsi had become Egypt's first democratically elected president. But after one year in office, almost weekly street protests and riots appeared to reach a climax with calls for Morsi to resign and even for the military to intervene. In July 2013, Morsi was overthrown. Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal reported on events in Egypt at the time - and now reveals new exclusive evidence of top-level conspiracy, power-broking and betrayal in the turmoil that led to Morsi's last days in office. Until now, much of what took place in the final days of the Morsi presidency was known only to those who witnessed the events first hand. Of the nine men with Morsi at the time, only one is no longer in jail. In this film, Egypt's former foreign relations assistant, Khaled al-Qazzaz among others, tells the behind-the-scenes story of the Morsi presidency's final hours. Throughout 2012 and into 2013, the streets of Egypt were rocked by almost weekly protests and riots, as well as an anger and frustration that divided the nation. The people who had risen up in 2011 had seen little improvement economically and they felt that the freedom they had gained was being misused by some to create chaos. Continuous power cuts, fuel shortage and petrol queues that later were proven to have been orchestrated by the deep state, lead to a toxic mix of anger and despair among the public. But the crisis in Egypt was not limited to fuel shortages and wages, nor were they limited to the big cities. In Sinai, attacks took place against security forces by groups that few had heard of before. ‎‎"President Morsi complained about interference from a certain Gulf state and told me that they had detected weapons shipments from this country to armed groups in Sinai, as well as money being sent to them," says Khalid al-Attiyah, Qatari minister of defence and former foreign minister. "But he also told me he was able to negotiate with this state." As protests continued and events unfolded, concern was expressed by world leaders. But it seemed Morsi's fate had already been sealed. "‎‎From what I know, senior US government officials by that juncture June 25, 2013, were aware of the possibility of a military coup against Morsi,"‎‎ ‎‎according to Andrew Miller, US National Security Council (2014-2017). Days after Morsi's June 26 speech, in which he attempted to pacify the population and offered several concessions to the opposition, his minister of defence General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi issued him with an ultimatum either to step down or face military intervention. "‎‎By the time that the military issued a 48-hour ultimatum, I think the overwhelming view in the US government was that it was too late. ‎‎That the die had already been cast, and no matter what happened short of Morsi resigning preemptively, that the military was going to forcibly remove him from the position of the presidency," explains Miller.‎‎ President Morsi was overthrown on July 3, 2013, and initially placed under house arrest where he was held incommunicado. Khalid al-Qazzaz, the presidential secretary for foreign affairs, recounts his last meetings with Morsi: "On the morning of July 4, we were allowed to have breakfast with the president. We found him to be surprisingly calm. He said it was the first time he'd been able to sleep for consecutive hours since he'd assumed responsibility." "It was clear he'd done his utmost to preserve the gains of the revolution and protect the Egyptian people. It was now up to the people either to choose to return to a police state or try to restore their revolution." Since the 2013 coup, a police crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood has left hundreds dead and tens of thousands jailed, many under draconian anti-protest and anti-terrorism laws. Morsi has been tried in several different cases. The former president remains in jail, facing a death sentence and charges that range from espionage, leaking intelligence information, collaborating with foreign forces to insulting the judiciary and freeing Islamists from jail in 2011. Amnesty International has described Egypt's judicial system as "horrendously broken" and described death sentences handed out to Morsi and other members of the Muslim Brotherhood in previous trials as a "vengeful march to the gallows." In a report released on March 28, 2018, a panel of British MPs and international lawyers said Morsi's conditions of imprisonment and inadequate medical care would likely lead to his "premature death". - 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/

Browder shares what it's like to live 'rent-free in Putin's head' and how the Magnitsky Act became a 'viral phenomenon'. The turmoil of post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s saw a handful of business people grow rich, while the country itself grew poor. Into the mix of chaotic capitalism and Wild West opportunity stepped a young Stanford business graduate ready to make his fortune: Bill Browder founded what would become the largest foreign investment fund in Russia, Hermitage Capital Management, worth $4.5bn in assets. While pushing his own ventures, he spoke out about a culture of corporate corruption and soon fell foul of Russia's new president, Vladimir Putin. In 2005, Browder was expelled from the country and declared a "threat to national security". His Hermitage investment fund was raided, and, he says, a complex fraud conducted by Russian officials resulted in the theft of some $230m. It was a scheme uncovered by Browder's lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, whose later death in prison - apparently the result of torture - set Browder on a lifelong mission to expose corruption. "They killed him in a horribly sadistic way at the age of 37 and I've been going after them ever since they killed him," Browder said in an interview with Al Jazeera. He lobbied for the Magnitsky Act, which aimed to freeze the assets of those suspected of financial crimes and human rights abuses. It was passed by the United States Congress in 2012. In 2016, it became the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, empowering the executive branch to impose targeted sanctions or visa bans on individuals who committed human rights violations anywhere in the world. Magnitsky-inspired laws have gained traction in the European Union; Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, the United Kingdom along with several other countries have adopted provisions. It has drawn the ire of the Russian president who, in 2018, said that he would grant the US access to 12 indicted Russian intelligence officials in exchange for access to several Americans, singling out US-born Browder and accusing him of not paying taxes while in Russia. In 2016, a Russian lawyer allegedly lobbied for repealing the Magnitsky Act and indicting Browder in a Trump Tower meeting with members of then-candidate Donald Trump's team. "We know for sure that the Russians were there because of me and the Magnitsky Act ... Russia is a country, where a thousand individuals have stolen all the money from the country. Literally, a thousand individuals have stolen a trillion dollars over a 20-year period ... and the other 145 million Russians are in destitute poverty," said Browder. "What the Magnitsky Act does ... is go after those 1,000 people. If they are ready to kill for money there's nothing more painful for them to have their money frozen. And even if you haven't frozen their money, just the idea that their money could be frozen is like a sword of Damocles hanging over their head. And that's why Putin hates the Magnitsky Act so much because he is a kleptocrat first and foremost. Browder has also been investigating what happened to the millions of dollars that disappeared when his investment fund was raided - which has raised the question of whether or not Trump cropped up along the money trail. "We've traced that for nine years and we've found all the money ... through law enforcement investigations, through private investigations, through whistleblowers, and so far there has not been any money that went to Donald Trump," Browder said. "Having said that, there's a lot of money that went to Vladimir Putin." Critics of Browder may argue that he is being hypocritical; like the oligarchs he went after, Browder had taken advantage of the upheaval following the collapse of the Soviet Union to do business. But he says that he did things differently. "The only similarity is that we were both investing in the system at the very same time. The difference was that almost immediately after I started, I started exposing corruption," he said. "I was doing it for money, I wasn't doing it for the goodness of the state. But to invest in companies, expose corruption, and try to stop it, that ... [by definition] is a good thing." Now, he says Magnitsky-inspired laws are catching on quickly. "The Magnitsky Act has now turned into a viral phenomenon. It's jumping from country to country to country. There's Magnitsky proposals all over the world in different parliaments and governments, etcetera, and of course I can help and stir up the pot and make things happen, but without my presence they would happen at the same time," 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/

As women in all parts of the world still suffer violence, discrimination, and under-representation, what’s the status of global gender equality? And how can progress be made? Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is the executive director of UN Women and has overseen its work in addressing gender issues since 2013. Al Jazeera asked Mlambo-Ngcuka whether International Women's Dayon March 8 is an occasion to celebrate, protest, or take up activism. "All of the above," she said. "Because even though we've made progress, and it's important that we celebrate the achievements, but we also haven't come far enough, we have a lot of work that we still need to do. So we still need to be activists. But also some of the gains that we have had are being eroded, so we have to protest and defend, and there is misogyny, and many other harmful and hurtful challenges that women still face. And because of that, protests are also in order." UN Women is working to collect gender statistics, often lacking in countries worldwide, to help provide more focused solutions. For example, collecting data on girls' school attendance and dropouts may help address the issue of girls missing school because of their menstrual cycle. "If we are unable to provide evidence about this phenomena, sometimes when we raise the importance of sanitation in schools as a critical human right, people don't believe that it is this serious, but when we have, then you are able to show this pattern. It means when you build, you build smart. When you innovate, you make sure that you provide the services at school and at home so that this right, which is about dignity ... is respected and taken serious," Mlambo-Ngcuka explained. For her, women's equality benefits everybody. "Feminism is about respecting the rights of people of all sexualities, but more than anything else being active in trying to correct and to address discrimination where it exists. This is not the responsibility of women alone, this is the responsibility of everyone who believes in equality. So feminism is not just about and for women. Feminism is about men and women working together to make the situation better for everybody." One positive trend is the increasing number of women in the political arena; about 23 percent of women were in single or lower houses of national parliaments in 2018, a roughly four-percent increase from 2010, according to the UN. Mlambo-Ngcuka agrees that more women in power will make a difference, but there is still progress to be made. "We have not reached the critical mass across the world that would ensure that you actually swing the pendulum decisively. We are going the right way in some situations. We are going the right way in particular because of activism of ordinary people trying to hold their leaders accountable. But we need people to vote for women when elections come." - 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/

Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil in October 2018, soon after the worst political scandal in Brazil's history, which saw dozens of businessmen and politicians arrested and accused of corruption. Although he was a member of the National Congress for almost 30 years, Bolsonaro was seen as an outsider who promised to fight corruption and crime, and help Brazil recover from a deep economic crisis. Now his challenge is to do that without angering crucial allies like China and the Arab world with his new foreign policy agenda that is taking his country closer to Israel and the United States. Bolsonaro, who is still recovering after being stabbed in a rally before the elections last year, is hoping to pass crime and pension reforms, but many question his lack of policies to fight inequality and protect minorities. Vice President Hamilton Mourao, one of several former military members appointed to Bolsonaro's cabinet, calls himself the "sword and the shield" of the president. He spoke to Al Jazeera in Brasilia. The political crisis in neighbouring Venezuela is a key issue for Brazil. In January 2019, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president following elections that many saw as fraudulent, while President Nicolas Maduro accused him of staging a coup and ordered his arrest. The political crisis is taking place amid growing frustration over Venezuela's economic collapse, which has seen hyperinflation, food and medicine shortages, and failed public services. Mourao believes the crisis must be addressed. "The Bolivarianism that was born with the later president, Hugo Chavez, proved to be not good for the country. It destroyed the oil industry, it destroyed their internal production. They put people against people. And so today the Venezuelan economy is totally shattered. Their social tissue also is shattered. So, of course, they need a change of government." He does not believe this means Brazil should intervene, and said it will not. He does, however, accept recent moves by the US to put pressure on the Venezuelan government by imposed sanctions and has questioned Maduro's presidency. Recently, the US tried but failed to push the UN Security Council to call for presidential elections in Venezuela and allow unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid. Internally, Brazil's government has promised to combat rising crime rates and crack down on the drug trade. In a televised interview with Brazil's TV Globo in 2018, then-candidate Bolsonaro said that police who kill criminals should be rewarded. Bolsonaro's cabinet contains eight former military members, and some are worried that the military - Brazil was under military rule between 1964 and 1985 - may dominate politics again. "Of course not, our democracy is a very strong one," Mourao said. "Our democracy has the balance of powers very straight. The executive does its job, the legislative does its job, the judiciary system does its job, and the president chose some military people for his cabinet. This is normal, and these guys are here working as civilians, not military. The armed forces are doing their job, nothing more than that. I don't see any threat for democracy in Brazil." Many are concerned that minorities will not be protected under the new government, as Bolsonaro has been accused of making offensive remarks regarding women, black people and the LGBT community. "Our constitution protects everybody here. The problem of human rights and minorities, I don't feel they are unprotected here in Brazil. And the government ... has a very good look for this and nobody is going to be persecuted here in Brazil," Mourao said. In January 2019, a gay legislator left Brazil after receiving death threats. Deaths of LGBT people has more than tripled since 2011, with 420 deaths through homicide and suicide in 2018, according to a report written by gay rights group Grupo Gay da Bahia and summarised by teleSUR English. "I walk in the streets, I don't see anybody fighting the gay people," Mourao said. "They are not killed because they are gays, they are killed because of crimes that happen with all other kinds of people. When 60,000 people are killed here in Brazil, some of them are from the gay community. I don't see a gay persecution in Brazil." - 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/

Filmmaker: Muhammad Salamah Known to some as the "Father of the Palestinians" or "Archbishop of the Arabs", Monsignor Hilarion Capucci was an enigmatic freedom-fighting Christian Archbishop in Jerusalem who was jailed for smuggling arms for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1970s, but continued battling for the Palestinians until his death. Born in the Syrian city of Aleppo in 1922, Capucci was ordained as a priest of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in 1947 and was appointed Patriarchal Vicar of Jerusalem and Archbishop of Caesarea in 1965, a time of great turmoil in the Middle East. In 1946, he witnessed the Jerusalem bombing of the King David Hotel by members of the Zionist group Irgun. Deeply affected by this, he wrote: "I was the only student who left the Saint Anne monastery that day. I saw the destruction and the bodies of 90 English and Arab victims ... I felt unbearable pain." On June 5, 1967, Israel declared war on Egypt, Syria and Jordan and defeated the combined Arab armies to occupy the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Syrian Golan Heights and the West Bank. The Israeli army entered Jerusalem and the city came under Israeli control, a turning point in the life of Archbishop Capucci. We have to work hard, fight and struggle. Hilarion Capucci , Christian Archbishop in Jerusalem "He told me he was badly affected by what happened in 1967," recalls Ali Rafie, lawyer of the Malaabi brothers. "He saw 'martyrs' in the streets and alleyways of Jerusalem. He buried 400 bodies himself. Muslim Sheikhs helped him with the burials. He and the Sheikhs prayed together for those Jerusalem martyrs." Capucci wrote in his memoirs: "Three days after the occupation of Jerusalem, I was driving my car in the streets of Jerusalem, wearing my clerical clothes. An Israeli soldier approached and spat at me. I got out of the car and started beating him until he fell to the ground. I was then convinced that these invaders must be confronted with violence to beat their brutality. I decided to work hard to resist the occupation." Shocked by atrocities of war, he refused to maintain any relationship with Israel and thus began an aggressive underground campaign to provide weapons for Fatah and other Palestinian resistance factions. As a religious leader with diplomatic immunity, the archbishop could travel across the Lebanese-Israeli border without being subject to inspection. But on one fateful day in August 1974, Archbishop Capucci was stopped in Jerusalem and inside his car, the authorities said, was a cache of weapons. The Malaabi brothers were also arrested in conjunction with Capucci for weapons smuggling. During his highly publicised trial, he famously said, "I don't recognise this trial. You're occupiers. Everything I say is addressed to my people and to those who want to know why I did this. I don't care about your verdict," according to Palestinian historian Saqr Abu Fakhr. Archbishop Capucci mediated in a hostage crisis in Iraq in the early 1990s [AP/Broglio] He was sentenced to 12 years in jail, but Archbishop Capucci's time in prison came to an end in 1977, after Pope Paul VI appealed for his release. Capucci remained in the headlines following his release, attempting to mediate in the Iran hostage crisis. In May 1980, he obtained the release of the bodies of American soldiers who had died in a rescue mission. He also mediated in a hostage crisis in Iraq in the early 1990s. But his main preoccupation remained the Palestinian cause and he was a link between the PLO and the Catholic Church in the Vatican. "The Archbishop introduced the significance of the Palestinian cause to the whole of Europe," says Mai Keila, the Palestinian Ambassador to Italy. "All the delegations who came to Rome had to meet the Archbishop." Even with his mobility challenges, Capucci promoted the Palestinian cause wherever he could in the world. "We have to work hard, fight and struggle," he told his followers. In 2010, he was on board the Mavi Marmara when the Turkish-owned ship was intercepted by Israeli commandos as it took part in an aid flotilla attempting to breach the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Ten Turkish activists were killed and dozens wounded after the commandos boarded the ship and opened fire on the activists. Capucci was injured and said the raid was unwarranted. On January 1, 2017, the Vatican announced that Archbishop Hilarion Capucci had died in Rome, aged 94. It was his wish to be buried next to his mother in Lebanon. On hearing of his death, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described him as a great "freedom fighter". Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Sudan and Syria have all commemorated him on postage stamps. - 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/