Marita Cheng built a tech empire with the sole purpose of creating robots that help people in their everyday lives, especially those with physical disabilities. The 29-year-old creative entrepreneur works on several of her innovations in this film. Some are completed and some are still a work in progress. We see her creations through all stages, from inception and research development, to the process of making and testing them. Her robots transform the routines of people with disabilities. From an app that "sees" for blind people, to an "arm" that enables severely paralysed people to mobilise freely. - 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/

Featured Documentaries

Women Make Science: Robogal | Special Series

Filmmaker: Blaise Piguet Loyalty cards, medical records, geolocation, biometric passports. Our digital traces speak volumes about our habits. The large volume of data recorded during each of our visits to the internet represents a great opportunity for personalisation, but the information we distil is also widely used for commercial purposes and can be used by governments as an invasive tool. Dataland illustrates the different facets of big data and artificial intelligence being unleashed by the world's most prolific data scientists. The film goes to Dublin where artificial intelligence is becoming an increasing influence on community life; to Finland where citizens transmit their DNA to improve public health and predictive medicine; and finally to China where facial recognition is routinely used by the state to track the movement, habits and private lives of common people. But we are just scratching the surface of AI's capabilities. This film explores a number of different issues and provides us with a basic understanding of how it works and where it might lead. - 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/

Dataland: The evolution of artificial intelligence and big data

What is China? Where is it going? What is it going to do? The world's most populous country, an economy set to become the biggest in the world, a communist state, a developing nation, the world's oldest surviving civilisation at the cutting edge of a technological revolution, an authoritarian regime brutally suppressing its minority groups - China is many things to many people, but running through its core, like a continuous silk thread, is one central principle: order. The order really starts from within the family ... China is one of those cultures where relations are much more important and people are defined in a sense by roles. Professor Bin Wong, director of the China Institute, UCLA The Big Picture: The China Complex traces the roots of this principle to find how ancient philosophical models such as Legalism that promoted the strict, often brutal imposition of the law, and Confucianism, the moral bedrock of Chinese culture, have been the foundations of how China has been ordered for more than two and half centuries. The China Complex examines how they have been applied by ruling dynasties, nationalist republicans, communist revolutionaries all the way through to today's Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping. And at the heart of any leader's authority, we find a higher ideal: the Mandate of Heaven (tianming), legitimising the rule of emperors and paramount leaders alike. The suppression of Tibetan Buddhists and majority-Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang have been uncompromising. Viewed through the prism of order, new light is shed on how such oppression serves the greater Chinese interest. Leaked documents detailing the state-sanctioned abuses perpetrated within so-called "vocational education camps" in Xinjiang point to a regime unable to accommodate any divergence from a rigid, long-instilled notion of order. Those seeking to stand apart from Han-majority China are beaten down, forced to assimilate with majority rule or suffer the consequences. "Xinjiang was gradually being transformed into a kind of a police state … It's absolutely alright for them to be Uighurs if they'd simply eat pork and drink alcohol. And preferably even smoke cigarettes like good Han Chinese citizens always do," says Professor Steve Tsang, director of China Institute, SOAS In Hong Kong, demands for greater democratic rights has been given short shrift by Beijing. What the protestors in Hong Kong have demanded does not fit into the Chinese Communist Party's notion of what China stands for - a deference to authority, a hierarchy of respect, an adherence to order. "In the minds of an authoritarian dictator, the last thing you do is back down and let the people win," says Professor Sharon Hom, New York University. As China is in the grip of an autocratic government, criticised for human rights abuses at home and imperial adventurism abroad, can the age-old ideas bleeding through China's historic rise also tell of how it may be set to fall? As The China Complex shows, to understand China today and China tomorrow, it is first to understand China of long ago. - 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 China Complex (Part 2) | The Big Picture

What is China? Where is it going? What is it going to do? The world's most populous country, an economy set to become the biggest in the world, a communist state, a developing nation, the world's oldest surviving civilisation at the cutting edge of a technological revolution, an authoritarian regime brutally suppressing its minority groups - China is many things to many people, but running through its core, like a continuous silk thread, is one central principle: order. "The order really starts from within the family ... China is one of those cultures where relations are much more important and people are defined in a sense by roles," says Professor Bin Wong, director of the China Institute, UCLA. The Big Picture: The China Complex traces the roots of this principle to find how ancient philosophical models such as Legalism that promoted the strict, often brutal imposition of the law, and Confucianism, the moral bedrock of Chinese culture, have been the foundations of how China has been ordered for more than two and half centuries. The China Complex examines how they have been applied by ruling dynasties, nationalist republicans, communist revolutionaries all the way through to today's Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping. And at the heart of any leader's authority, we find a higher ideal: the Mandate of Heaven (tianming), legitimising the rule of emperors and paramount leaders alike. The suppression of Tibetan Buddhists and majority-Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang have been uncompromising. Viewed through the prism of order, new light is shed on how such oppression serves the greater Chinese interest. Leaked documents detailing the state-sanctioned abuses perpetrated within so-called "vocational education camps" in Xinjiang point to a regime unable to accommodate any divergence from a rigid, long-instilled notion of order. Those seeking to stand apart from Han-majority China are beaten down, forced to assimilate with majority rule or suffer the consequences. "Xinjiang was gradually being transformed into a kind of a police state … It's absolutely alright for them to be Uighurs if they'd simply eat pork and drink alcohol. And preferably even smoke cigarettes like good Han Chinese citizens always do," says Professor Steve Tsang, director of China Institute, SOAS In Hong Kong, demands for greater democratic rights has been given short shrift by Beijing. What the protestors in Hong Kong have demanded does not fit into the Chinese Communist Party's notion of what China stands for - a deference to authority, a hierarchy of respect, an adherence to order. "In the minds of an authoritarian dictator, the last thing you do is back down and let the people win," says Professor Sharon Hom, New York University. As China is in the grip of an autocratic government, criticised for human rights abuses at home and imperial adventurism abroad, can the age-old ideas bleeding through China's historic rise also tell of how it may be set to fall? As The China Complex shows, to understand China today and China tomorrow, it is first to understand China of long ago. Source: Al Jazeera - 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 Big Picture: The China Complex (Part 1)

Every year, communities on the Gulf of Mexico risk being swept away by the elements. In 2005, the US state of Louisiana was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, a Category 5 storm which breached levies and flooded the city of New Orleans. In July 2019, tropical storm Hurricane Barry again forced thousands to evacuate as heavy rainfall brought widespread flooding. But hurricanes are not the only problem Louisiana is facing. It has been losing land to the Gulf of Mexico at an alarming rate, caused in part by oil exploration and made worse by rising sea levels from climate change. It has threatened the unique and ancient way of life on the bayous as those communities now face the prospect of having to relocate to higher ground. In 2009, we visited the wetlands of the Mississippi Delta, where Cajun people had lived on the land for generations and were struggling to keep up with change. As marshlands were turned into open water, communities were retreating inland, pushed back by the waters that were once their lifeblood. Those in the shrimping business also suffered as salt water infiltrated the delicate wetlands and less freshwater was available to grow shrimp. That, combined with competition from foreign companies, meant that they had to work hard for less profit. Windell Curole, the general manager of the South Lafourche Levee District, described how there was precious little time to save communities. "It's not only losing the future, it's losing the past," he said. Ten years on, Rewind returns to southern Louisiana to revisit Curole and others still battling climate change. Curole takes us to a dock where nearby a cemetery and marshes once stood. Now, there is just open water. He says that only six people remain in the community, down from the roughly 30 residents 10 years ago. We also visit Phyliss Melancon, whose family has fished in the area for generations. "Other areas do things and they are preserving their land and here it's not. There is no future, no more future for residents. I don't know, it hurts. It hurts to know that you have to move," she 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/

Losing Louisiana: Life in the Disappearing Mississippi Delta | REWIND

"My Ethiopia is my homeland. My Ethiopia is my blood. My Ethiopia is the country I was wounded for," says Muruts Beyene who lives in the Tigray region of northeast Ethiopia. A veteran of the 1998-2000 Ethiopia-Eritrea war, Muruts spent years defending the territory he lives in from being usurped. But now, after new political reforms under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, part of his Irob community may be at risk. "I live near the border of Ethiopia and Eritrea, in an area which has been promised to Eritrea," he says. Although the war officially ended with the signing of a peace deal more than 18 years ago, countless disagreements and scrimmages over the disputed territories have continued. Since coming to power in April 2018, Abiy has promised unprecedented reforms. Part of this involves agreeing to relinquish some borderland to Eritrea - including sections of Irob land where Muruts and his community reside. Many Ethiopians welcomed Abiy's gesture as a way of allowing Ethiopia to move forward. However, others see the move as a betrayal of their contributions to the country, as well as a threat to Irob language, culture and identity. "Since Prime Minister Abiy came to power, for the Irob, there has been no peace," Muruts says. "The politics are a mess and we are affected." At least 80,000 people were killed during the Ethiopia-Eritrea war. Pointing to the mountains near the border, Muruts says: "That mountain you see is a graveyard, full of people from different nations and ethnicities who died and were buried there." "If the land is going to be given away, what were all those people sacrificed for?" he asks. Muruts' Irob community is a minority ethnic group of about 30,000 people. Already small in number, a redefined border would mean that some of their tiny population would be split between two countries. Muruts is desperate for his community to stay together, and worries the planned division will threaten his business as well as the survival of his people. "We Irob are like brothers with one church, one house," he says. "Dividing us in two will hurt the Irob nation." - - 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/

Muruts Beyene: Living in the Ethiopia-Eritrea Borderland | My Ethiopia

We meet doctors at Johannesburg's 'Bara' hospital who are tackling eye problems among South Africa's poor communities. Once home to Nelson Mandela, Soweto was at the forefront of South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle. The township, historically known as a site of defiance against racist rule, was also a place where much of Johannesburg's poor, black, urban population was forced to live. Since the end of apartheid more than 25 years ago, Soweto has grown and developed. Yet parts remain dangerous and severely disadvantaged. In the middle of Soweto, the Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital - known locally as 'Bara' - is one of the largest and busiest hospitals in the southern hemisphere, and a place where many of Johannesburg's poor go to access healthcare. While nearly 70 percent of all Bara's admissions are emergencies - many of them gunshot wounds - doctors also treat other regular ailments and complicated medical cases, from critical care to paediatrics to ophthalmology. In 2009, Al Jazeera followed Bara's medical teams working against the odds to save lives and help restore health to a community with little means of affording private care. In the ophthalmology department - called St John's Eye hospital - we met residents working long hours helping patients in consultation rooms, operating theatres, and even on the benches of a waiting area. Today, St John's doctors treat around 50,000 patients a year and continue to face a severe workload with insufficient resources. A decade ago, this film introduced us to Dr Rob Daniel, who was completing the last weeks of a four-year residency; he called working at Bara "a gold mine of experience". "We deal with people on a very personal basis, which is fundamentally built on trust," Daniel said at the time. "The comfort that a patient feels by us caring for them, that's what gives us a lot of our job satisfaction." In 2019 Rewind returned to Soweto and caught up with Daniel, who now runs a successful private practice, but also continues to serve less-privileged communities. Through a charity he set up called 'Bonani' - which means "let us all see" in South Africa's Zulu language - Daniel is able to tap into technological advancements in his field and use newer, portable equipment to treat hundreds more patients anywhere - not just in a clinic. He credits his time at Bara for inspiring him to continue serving the community. "I think spending four years serving a very poor population imprinted the experience onto me," he says. "Ten years later the plight of your average person in the poor community in South Africa is no better. Perhaps even a little worse than what it was. This is a great motivator for us to keep giving back to these communities and do our little bit to improve their lives." For more on REWIND: https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rewind/ - 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/

Saving Soweto: Seeing the Light | REWIND

When Raees Ahmadzai first became aware of cricket he was eight years old and living in a refugee camp in Pakistan's northwest Frontier Province. It was 1992 and Pakistan were about to win the Cricket World Cup. Like millions of other Afghans, Raees and his family had sought refuge in neighbouring Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of 1979. There, cricket was already an established passion. "I was in school at the refugee camp when Pakistan won the 1992 World Cup ... Everyone was happy, the teacher was happy, people were celebrating. We'd say, what's this World Cup?" Raees recalled. Little did Raees know that the game he was watching, but barely understood, would go on to change his life. "'Slowly slowly we started playing cricket ... For maybe five or six years we played cricket without shoes, or without anything. Even in 45 or 50 degrees heat. That was tough." Raees quickly excelled. He started playing league matches in Pakistan and became a central figure in the emerging Afghan cricket team. Games such as cricket and football were banned and condemned by the Taliban in the early years of their austere rule, which began in 1996, but they lifted the cricket ban in 2000. In 2001, a US-led invasion toppled the Taliban. In the same year, Afghanistan's national cricket team was formed and their cricket board formally recognised as an affiliate member of the International Cricket Council. At the time, they had no world ranking and no home pitch. But they had a generation of talented players. "We have no facilities, we have no ground, no salaries, no nothing, but we have unity. There are no barriers between us, we are together as one. We are just playing for our country and we play from our heart to represent our people and our nation," Raees told Al Jazeera's Andy Richardson 10 years ago as he was getting ready to play in the T20 World Cup qualifier. "We are doing something special for our country, something for peace. We want to change the minds of people and convince them that war is bad. I want the whole country to have the same unity our team does." Since then, Afghanistan's cricket team has found a new home among the sports world's elite. In 2019, Rewind talked to Raees and Andy Richardson about Afghan cricket today and what has changed since Al Jazeera filmed the team ahead of the 2010 T20 World Cup. Raees said that nowadays "everyone knows about cricket ... Cricket is the number one sport in Afghanistan. All the youngsters want to play cricket ... and they get a lot of support." Since his retirement from the national team in 2010 Raees has worked in different positions on the Afghan Cricket Board and is currently working with the Afghanistan Under-19 team as a head coach. He believes that sport, and cricket specifically, continues to have a positive effect on Afghans and how the war-torn nation is perceived abroad. "Cricket gave a good name to Afghanistan. I remember when I was the captain we went to England; I can't remember the exact name ... it was a very small village. We had a cricket match there and people ... had no idea about Afghanistan. They just knew Afghanistan because of the war ... They told us that they never thought that Afghan people would play cricket ... So cricket gave a good name to Afghanistan all over the world." Cricket is often viewed as a "product of British colonialism, a legacy of the empire" explains Richardson. "But Afghanistan cricket has emerged in a completely different way. These guys 15 years ago were learning cricket in Pakistan in refugee camps. There was no legacy from the English. They learned their cricket in a very tough way, street cricket; playing tape-ball cricket. It meant bowlers emerged of the like no-one had ever seen in the world. And as a consequence now, they are like gold dust ... They are playing all over the world." - 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/

Proud to be an Afghan: Cricket in the Shadow of War | REWIND

From poisoning former spies in London to tampering in US elections. Leading the military support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria and playing a part in the pro-leave campaign in Britain's Brexit referendum. From nurturing friendly relations with Iran and Turkey to a military attack on Ukraine and subsequent annexation of Crimea... Russian President Vladimir Putin finds himself at the centre of the world's political map. Not since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 has the Kremlin seemingly wielded so much influence in international affairs. This very much fits in with Putin's ideological makeup. As a former Soviet spy based in Germany he was very invested in Russia expanding its sphere of influence... and was certainly not adverse to the use of skulduggery to achieve these goals. What is Russia hoping to achieve and who are the people devising the strategy that has put Russian President Vladimir Putin as a lead actor on the world stage?

Peace and War: The View from Russia | Featured Doc

"There's never been an Arab state here with the capital of Jerusalem," says Daniel Luria. "There's never been a Palestinian state here. This talk about Palestine, Palestine ... I've never heard of anything more absurd." Luria is the executive director of Ateret Cohanim, a settler organisation working to create a Jewish majority in the city of Jerusalem. Raised in Australia, Luria says Israel is his only home, in spite of only having moved there 25 years ago. He is one of more than 850,000 people [≈ population of San Francisco, California, US] residing in Jerusalem. After a peaceful period under Ottoman rule, where Islam, Christianity and Judaism coexisted in relative harmony, the decline of the empire and consequent victory of the British in Palestine during World War I set the stage for the eventual takeover of the city. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jewish forces captured West Jerusalem as the eastern half became part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Almost two decades later, the 1967 Six-Day War would see the Jewish state claim rights to the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and all of Jerusalem. Since then, Israel has established over 200 illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land with about 600,000 settlers in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. In this two-part film, Al Jazeera's Awad Joumaa follows a cast of characters - Jewish, Christian and Muslim - that call Jerusalem home. A Muslim scholar; a Christian Palestinian researcher; a former Israeli soldier and former Zionist turned professor; a self-described Zionist settler; a peace activist; an actress and her artist son; and a father, whose son is under home detention, fighting to hold on to his house in the Old City. These are some of the key characters, sharing their stories and thoughts on the city's past, present and future. This is the story of Jerusalem as told through its own people.

A Rock and a Hard Place: What is it like to live in Jerusalem? (Part II) | Featured Documentary

With almost 90 percent of Myanmar's population being devoted Buddhists, the religion has been at the heart of the nation's very identity for centuries. But while the pillars of Buddhist teachings are love, compassion and peace, there is a very different variation to the philosophy being taught at the Ma Ba Tha monastery in Yangon's Insein township. The monks there are connected to one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, the systematic persecution and genocide of the Rohingya in Rakhine state. Al Jazeera's unprecedented access to the Ma Ba Tha monastery and its leaders offers a glimpse into how their ultra-nationalist agenda is becoming the blueprint for the political structure of the country. Is the joining of forces between monks and generals threatening Myanmar's young and fragile democracy?

An Unholy Alliance: Monks and the Military in Myanmar | Featured Documentary

For the past two years, Saudi Arabia has prepared to place its national oil company on the stock market. Officials talked up the Saudi Aramco initial public offering (IPO) with international exchanges and global banks. It seemed like a great idea that the world's largest oil producing company, valued at $2tn, would become the world's largest ever traded stock. There are many companies in the world which move and shake markets but perhaps no other organisation essential to running a country. Aramco is unique and it runs no ordinary country. Saudi Arabia plays a key role in moving global oil prices. The oil market affects everyone on the planet directly or indirectly. Oil prices have developed and destroyed economies - Sudan and Venezuela being the most recent examples. So Aramco shedding its cloak of secrecy and deciding to go public is a huge deal - especially for Saudi Arabia which is run by a monarchy and its affairs cannot be publicly evaluated or scrutinised. The proposed listing of the national champion was a central part of the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030, a reform drive aimed at restructuring the kingdom's economy and reducing its dependence on oil revenue. "I think there was a strong case for the IPO and there still is for the selling of a stake of Saudi Aramco and there are lots of reasons for it," explains Jim Krane, an energy researcher at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy While Saudi Arabia, like other Gulf states, has been trying to move their economies away from oil dependency for years, "the spectre of climate action has finally made the Saudis get serious about it. And really the only way to diversify is through Aramco and Aramco is the source of revenues that the Saudi state needs to build other economic sectors," says Krane. The kingdom holds about 16 percent of the world's oil reserves and is the largest exporter of petroleum among OPEC countries. Nearly half of the country's gross domestic product comes from oil and Aramco itself employs 65,000 people. The concerns about radical changes in strategy put a spanner in the works for Saudi Aramco's public listing. For the first time in its history, an IPO would bring full public disclosure of Aramco's financial details, a feat that has never been made public. "Probably the biggest downside is the transparency that would have resulted around Saudi oil reserves," says Krane, a number that doesn't move beyond 260 billion barrels. "If Saudi Aramco would have listed shares on the NYSE or the London stock exchange, the regulators would have forced Saudi Arabia to come clean on all of its reserves, how much of that is proven probable or otherwise." A lot has changed since Mohammed bin Salman's international public relations drive such as the imprisonment of top Saudi businessmen, the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the continued war on Yemen, and the Saudi-led blockade on neighbouring Qatar. That has resulted in a flight of capital, reduced foreign investment, increased Saudi borrowing and a halt on Saudi Aramco's IPO. This is not the first time reforms have been promised in Saudi Arabia. "In many ways, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) resembles his grandfather Abdul Aziz al-Saud," says Chas Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He explains that the late leader united the country "with tribal marriages ... conducted a war in the Saudi south, which took land from Yemen ... suppressed religious uprisings and it worked." Whether his grandson's current ambitions will work is "unknown", says Freeman. Aramco owns the largest refinery in the US, Motiva, and hundreds of facilities across the globe and funds universities, think-tanks, lobbying firms and controls a vast media empire. That money shapes policy and perceptions while also covering up criticism of the kingdom. Saudi Aramco's failure to launch and a young leader's stumble from one crisis to another are directly linked. There is an urgency to rush into things but also a lack of experience. "That is really like planning for the growth of a nation, not the exit of an IPO," says Chad Brownstein, a hydrocarbon investment analyst and CEO of Rocky Mountain Resources. "And the growth of a nation takes a lot more planning than a couple of months." Saudi Aramco: The Company and the State examines the reasons behind the ambitious offering, the politics of Saudi oil, the strategic importance of Aramco, a faulty evaluation, the challenges of transparency and what it means for an ambitious prince's Vision 2030. - 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/

Saudi Aramco: The Company and the State - A story of oil, wealth and power | Featured Documentary

As the global temperature averages a 0.8-degree Celsius increase over the last century, one must question the seemingly insatiable appetites of politicians and world economies for endless and unprecedented growth. US efforts in the second world war demonstrated the might of the dollar. Although the basic concept of gross domestic product (GDP) was created in the 1600s, it was only in 1930s and 1940s America that this new way of understanding the economy and income, was introduced to the mainstream. As war-time efforts presented the United States in a successful light, the seed of obsession with economic growth was planted. The 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, however, would soon prove to the masses that this growth was not without fault or delay; this faltering of growth would begin with the 1970s oil crisis, triggering a stock market crash and levels of unemployment that the world hadn't experienced in decades. The limits of growth, economic, social and, arguably most importantly, ecological, would finally be questioned. According to the NASA earth observatory, a one-to-two degree Celsius drop in temperature was once all it took for the world to be plunged into an Ice Age. The observatory also notes that a mere five degree drop could have buried North America under tonnes of ice. These extreme scenarios are struck to demonstrate the urgency with which climate change should now be addressed. If economic growth is expected to continue, indefinitely, can the same be expected of the earth? If infinite growth is impossible in nature, why do we expect economic growth to continue forever? Confusion, and even anger, stems from the coexistence of terms like global warming, peak oil (the end of crude oil harvesting and other natural resources) and environmental degradation, which have become more commonplace of late, and which stand in stark contrast to the notable rise in standard of living that economically developed nations have been experiencing for decades. With a marked improvement in the GDP, higher life expectancy and decreases in mortality rates, plus an argument for biodiversity booming in times of economic growth, is there an argument for things getting better as they get bigger? After all, growth is the foundation of our economic system; without it, capitalism does not work.

Growing Pains: The Ecological Cost of an Insatiable Economy | Feature Documentary

After nearly four years of relentless conflict in Yemen, the world has grown used to images of war, killing and destruction. The United Nations estimates that since March 2015, around 6,600 Yemeni civilians have been killed, 10,500 injured - and the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, including famine and widespread disease, has been allowed to develop. There's a danger rolling news coverage can make viewers de-sensitised to prolonged conflict, especially to the human suffering. But sometimes, a single event can make the world sit up and take notice. A bombing on August 9, 2018, in the northern Yemeni city of Saada, near the border with Saudi Arabia, was one such event. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world. In 2011, a revolution, part of the so-called Arab Spring, overthrew President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The armed group in the north of Yemen, the Houthis, took advantage of the instability. They moved south and ultimately captured the capital, Sanaa, seizing power from the government of new President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. This Houthi takeover prompted a group of Arab states - led by Saudi Arabia and including the United Arab Emirates - to launch an all-out attack on Houthi positions in March 2015, saying that the Houthis were supported by Iran. In August 2018, an international news story circulated, saying that coalition forces had hit a bus carrying children on a summer school excursion in Saada, close to the Saudi border. "Saudi forces bombed a school bus. It managed to shock a lot of people. This is a school bus. This is not a military target," said Andrew Smith, spokesman for Campaign Against Arms Trade. Fifty-one people, including 40 children, were killed and 77 others injured in the Saada attack. The International Red Cross said their medical team at the al-Talh hospital there received the bodies of 29 children, all aged under 15. The hospital also treated 48 injured patients of whom 30 were children. The Saada bus bombing triggered international condemnation, and the UN Security Council called for a credible and transparent investigation into the incident. This film looks at what happened that day and how planes deployed by the Saudi-UAE coalition managed to bomb a bus full of Yemeni school children in Saada, killing nearly everyone on board. - 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/

Yemen: The Saada Bus Bombing

On May 22, 2017, a 22-year-old Manchester-born man of Libyan descent detonated a home-made bomb at a pop concert. Twenty-three people, including the attacker, were killed. The attack came 16 years after the declaration of the so-called "War on Terror" and was one of four major reported attacks in Britain in 2017 alone. "Many governments around the world have declared that the fight against terrorism is their number one priority ... but the fear has continued, the attacks have continued. We have to wonder, why is this the case?" asks Dr Mahmoud Mohamedou, a world-renowned expert on political violence. Could government policies aimed at preventing violent extremism actually make things worse? Dr Mohamedou sets out to find out what's behind rising youth radicalisation and political violence and how the West's dealing with the perceived threats of a post-9/11 world affects young people vulnerable to radicalisation. - 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/

Rethinking Radicalisation | Radicalised Youth

Al Jazeera's landmark documentaries seek to engage, inform and inspire with a wide range of stories from around the world.

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