Al Jazeera World

Filmmaker: Sherif Fathy

Egyptians top the world at squash. No other country comes close to their recent global dominance and no other sport in Egypt matches the success of squash.

The sport was introduced to Egypt by the British in the 1920s. Amr Bey was an Egyptian diplomat and squash player who won the British Open six times in the 1930s and is generally considered to be the first major, international squash player.

Today, in 2019, seven of the top-ten ranked players are Egyptian, including the world number one. In the last two decades, six Egyptian men and two women have topped the world rankings. Their juniors have won 25 individual titles and Egypt has won 23 team titles across all categories.

International stars Tarek Momen and Raneem El Welily say it is all about hard work from an early age.

"I started playing squash when I was five. It was forced on me. It was the day when my parents came with this racket. I thought it was like a tennis racket but smaller. They said I'd start squash the next day. I was just a kid and knew nothing about squash," Momen tells Al Jazeera.

He adds: "I wasn't sure why we played in a closed room and hit the ball at the wall. I trained against my will for almost two years."

At the time of writing, Momen is ranked number three in the world.

Egypt nurtures young squash talent and has pioneered international competitions for squash players as young as age nine. Former professionals turn to coaching and parents also help their kids succeed in a highly popular sport.

"My parents saw that squash was a sport that Egypt could succeed in locally and abroad. The first time I went to the squash club wasn't to train but for my brother's trial lesson. My parents agreed with the coach for my brother to start. I used to watch my brother play after my swimming class. A year later the squash coach asked me to try," El Welily explains. Now she holds the number one world ranking for squash.

One leading coach suggests Egyptian success is based on breaking the mould, meaning that their players are resourceful, creative, and "attacking".

Ashraf Hanafi, who has more than 35 years of experience as a player and a coach, tells Al Jazeera: "People ask about the secret of Egyptians getting into the top 10 in the men's, women's and junior categories. The secret is a magical mix of many things."

"They start playing at a very young age and produce strong results."

But how long can Egyptians stay at the top of squash?

High salaries abroad, especially in the United States, are luring some of their best coaching talent away and many believe this, as well as a lack of funding at home, are threats to Egypt's dominance. But Momen and El Welily have found more than just playing and financial reward success through squash.

They became friends on the international circuit and got married in 2014, becoming the highest-profile married couple in Egyptian sport. The couple continues to appear in major tournaments around the world.

"A year into marriage she [El Welily] beat Nicole David who was the defending world champion for nine consecutive years. Raneem has become the first Egyptian sportswoman to be world number one," Momen says.

"That's a big achievement for us. It's made me happy."

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Filmmakers: Hani Bashir and Mohammad Amr

Over the decades, millions of people from the Arab world have emigrated - some driven by conflict and persecution, others for economic and family reasons. They have settled in Europe, Australia, the Americas and Africa.

But the stories most often told are those of refugees fleeing war and persecution, stories that can be incomplete.

Al Jazeera World meets people who have built successful lives away from their Arab homelands while remaining connected to their roots and giving back to their countries of origin.

The British-Palestinian campaigner

Essam Mustafa Yousef came to the United Kingdom in the 1980s as a student and now, more than three decades later, he is still there, working as an activist and campaigner. Driven by a commitment to his native Palestine, he established an aid organisation with the primary goal of helping Palestinian communities.

"I came to Britain primarily to study. I'd planned to stay for a couple of years but I ended up staying for 35," Yousef tells Al Jazeera.

He explains that after he arrived in Britain, he began to raise funds for those in the Occupied Territories at the local mosque in Cricklewood, an area in northwest London. Eventually, he moved his relief work to an office nearby.

Yousef is now the co-founder of the British charity the Palestine Relief and Development Fund, better known as Interpal. For over 25 years, it has provided humanitarian and development aid to Palestinians in need, focusing on relief to orphans, people with disabilities, the sick and the poor.

In 2003, the US Treasury designated Interpal as a 'terrorist entity,' alleging it was using its charitable status to channel funds to Hamas, a charge that Interpal and its trustees vigorously denied.

Nonetheless, it continues to operate as a registered charity in the UK. The Charity Commission, the official regulator of charities in Britain, has investigated Interpal several times and has found no reason to alter its charitable status.

"We go through a long process to vet the aid organisations we work with and to ensure they operate within the law. Each centre supervises and ensures their allocated funds reach people in need in their areas. Since these centres know the situation [on the ground] very well they act on our behalf to deliver aid we send from Britain. They are the agencies on the ground while we are the fundraisers," Yousef says.

The Syrian astronomer and stargazer living in Hawaii

As a child in Syria, Dr Sahdia Habbal looked to the skies with curiosity and wonder. Today she is one of the world's leading astronomers.

Habbal was born in Damascus and developed a love for physics at school.

"Education was always important for my family," Habbal tells Al Jazeera. "I was 12 when I read a biography of Marie Curie, the pioneer of radioactivity. I was very impressed by her and wanted to be just like her."

Habbal later won a coveted place in a scientific doctorate programme at the University of Cincinnati, the only woman in an all-male department.

"I wasn't just a woman but also a Syrian woman. They were surprised to see a woman from that part of the world with scientific ambitions", Habbal says.

After gaining a prestigious spot at a research centre in Boulder, Colorado, Habbal developed expertise in 'solar wind'. Before long, her work came to the attention of NASA.

Her career eventually led her to the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy. Habbal is now an 'eclipse chaser', monitoring total solar eclipses in over 10 countries including India, Guadalupe, China and French Polynesia.

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Peter Maurer, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), says his organisation's budget has doubled in the past few years as it deals with the scale of conflict and displacement in the world today.

The organisation's work is based on the Geneva Conventions, a set of international treaties signed in 1949 that defines the international legal standards for the humane treatment of civilians and prisoners of war during times of conflict.

"It is all about preserving humanity in war," Maurer says.

The Conventions allow the Red Cross to provide its services to those engaged in conflict, including ensuring humanitarian assistance for victims of war, responding to emergencies, and promoting respect for international humanitarian law.

But with the scale of current global conflicts - and the increasing battle for influence - how does the ICRC make sure the Geneva Conventions are followed?

"Nobody can discard the stark reality that the Geneva Conventions are violated by a lot of parties in today's conflicts," Maurer tells Al Jazeera, but he stops short of directly calling out any of the offending parties.

Discussing violations of international humanitarian law in Yemen, he says it is "a glass-half-full, half-empty" situation. "While the pattern of implementation of the Geneva Conventions in a context like Yemen is of course a big challenge - and we see violations continuing - we also see big efforts from all the belligerents to engage with us and to improve."

Other deeply entrenched or fragmented conflicts are a growing concern for the organisation, Maurer says. He calls this time "a difficult period" that reflects the "impossibility at the moment of big powers to move to consensus on how exactly to settle ... some of the biggest conflicts in the world".

This includes Syria, which is the ICRC's largest ongoing operation. The conflict continues despite diplomatic efforts, which Maurer agrees has involved a discrepancy between words and actions of the countries involved.

"For eight years we have heard political leaders talking about the fact that there is no military solution while pursuing on-the-ground military solutions," he says, later adding: "We have even more been distressed by the repetitive violations of international humanitarian law in the conduct of hostilities, in use of weapons, in the treatment of detainees."

"I think we can only hope that in a foreseeable future we find at least ceasefire-type arrangements which give reprieve to the civilian population which has so much suffered in that Syrian context," he says.

Outside of the Middle East, Maurer says large-scale violence is also afflicting people in Africa's Sahel and Lake Chad basin regions - but with far less international attention.

"When you visit the region it pops to your eyes that there is long-standing developmental reasons which contribute to the fragility of this context. There is climate change-induced migration and population displacements which comes on top of a very war-torn and violent situation," he says.

"The Europeans only look through the eyes of migrants coming to them, and maybe insufficiently look at the complexity of the origin of fragility and population displacements in the Sahel and the Lake Chad."

He says climate change will continue to drive instability.

"When you look at the list of countries most at risk from climate change, and you look at my priority list of conflict, war, and violence, these almost match. Eight out of 10 places in the world which are top priorities to ICRC to respond to war [are] at the same time the most fragile in terms of climate change. So there is obviously a link between climate change-induced fragility and violence-induced fragility."

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From 1948 to 1967, residents of Egyptian Sinai and neighbouring Gaza considered the area as a single territory.

But in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Israel captured Sinai and the Gaza Strip.

Twelve years later, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty which returned control of Sinai to Egypt; but the Israeli occupation of Gaza continued. In 1982, a wall was built to separate the two territories - a wall which still stands today.

"They started building the wall at midday," says Alaa Attiya Issa, recalling that day in April 1982. "I was at my uncle's house on the Palestinian side of Rafah. At 11:15am my uncle said 'They'll close the border at midday. You'd better go home now so you don't get stuck'. I said goodbye and cried."

"We hadn't expected that to happen," he says. "A wall was built and the Palestinian side of Rafah was separated from the Egyptian side. Those on the Sinai side stayed there, and those on the Palestinian side stayed there. It happened just like that."

Issa, a former footballer, once played for Rafah FC in Sinai. But because of the wall, he decided to move back to Palestine, settle in Gaza and give up football.

From the start, the wall divided families, split communities and carved some towns in two. Routines were disrupted, trading relationships undermined, health and education affected - whole ways of life turned upside-down.

The life of Samya al-Agha, an Egyptian, was affected by the wall soon after her marriage to a Palestinian from Gaza. The border wall went up just 20 days after they were wed, separating her new home from her Sinai family in Arish.

"One half of the family lives in Egyptian Rafah and the other half in Palestine," she says.

"My father used to work in Palestine. He used to move freely between the two countries ... He used to come here to farm. It was all one piece of land. He even used to go to Friday noon prayer in Gaza. He and my grandfather used to ride a camel to the Grand Mosque in Khan Younis. They didn't even realise these were two different countries. They thought it was all one."

Bedouin tribes living between the territories also saw their lives change overnight.

"After the wall was built, our al-Tarabin tribe was divided into two parts," says Najeh al-Hamidi, a Bedouin born in Gaza but now living in Sinai. "People call them Palestine's al-Tarabin and Sinai's al-Tarabin though we're one tribe and one family going back to the same great-grandfather."

"The problem is not the people," he says. "The problem lies with international law. It doesn't take humanity into consideration."

Although the region’s peaceful social coexistence ended in 1982, older residents on both sides of the wall hold on to their memories of life as it was before they were separated.

In spite of the metal and concrete barrier and the harsh political reality it represents, they remain firm in their belief in the unity of the spirit of those on either side.

"I'm now standing here, only 10 metres away from the Sinai side of Rafah but I can't go there," says Issa, looking beyond the wall. "This is not just an occupation. It's a responsibility. We're supposed to be one people and one country."

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In the coming years, Chile is expected to host 70 percent of global astronomical infrastructure.

In the Atacama Desert, the world's two largest telescopes - the ELT and the Giant Magellan - are under construction. When complete, they will provide direct views of planets in other solar systems. This will be an astronomical first.

Celestial objects have been observed and studied since the beginning of time. The planets and stars have helped human beings understand the cosmos, the way it functions, and its impact on our lives. Since Galileo Galilei became the first astronomer to use a telescope for his observations in the 17th century, humanity has devised newer and better ways to study the universe.

But what will these new facilities help us to discover? How will they change the way we look at our universe? And will they help answer the one question many are curious about: Is there extraterrestrial life?

"Life is there, potentially, in the whole universe. And when it arrives in a place where you know it's comfortable and can be developed, it does," says Chilean astrophysicist Dr Maria Teresa Ruiz.

"Although we have no evidence, I would find it very, extremely strange that we would be the only ones in the universe. There are so many, so many stars, so many planets around them. I'm sure there could be life in many of them."

Ruiz is known for discovering the brown dwarf star system named Kelu-1, a sub star located in constellation Hydra, approximately 61 light-years away from earth. She is a pioneer, the first woman to have received a doctorate from Princeton University, and the first woman to receive Chile's national prize for exact sciences.

She says the advanced telescopes will help study the atmospheres of distant planets, to search for traces of oxygen or other indicators of life.

"When you see the universe through these big eyes, you are going to see something nobody else has seen before ... Often the case is what you see, the unknown, is the most interesting thing; something you cannot predict. It's like opening a window to the unknown," she says.

Dr Jose Maza Sancho also believes in the possibility of extraterrestrial life, even if not necessarily always intelligent life.

"There are eight million forms of life on earth. Most of them are bacteria, but bacteria is a form of life," he says. "My suspicion is that at the very least there are 100 billion places in the universe with life."

However, he adds: "But from one galaxy to the next, [for example] a big galaxy like the Andromeda galaxy, the distance is more than two million light-years. If you say 'hello, are you there?' in two million years your message will reach Andromeda. And if they say 'yes, we're here, what do you want?' another two million years for the message to return."

Sancho is a bold exponent of a number of extraordinary theories, including humanity landing on Mars and developing into a multi-planetary society as soon as possible.

"The next challenge, the next intellectual challenge, is to go to Mars," he says, "because it is possible".

"When we went to the moon, all technology got an improvement, enormously. Our life - you or mine, and everybody's life - changed forever because of the dream to go to the moon. The only way to survive in Mars is to have another technology. And if we develop the technology for a few of us to live on Mars, that technology is going to change our life on earth forever."

"It's a big challenge, but if we are able to develop the atmosphere in Mars, we will be able to clean our atmosphere. If we develop big machines like that to survive in Mars, those machines applied massively on earth, we could be taking out of the atmosphere as much carbon dioxide as we are putting in."

This week two of Chile's top astronomers, Dr Maria Teresa Ruiz and Dr Jose Maza Sancho, talk to Al Jazeera.

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In the coming years, Chile is expected to host 70 percent of global astronomical infrastructure.

In the Atacama Desert, the world's two largest telescopes - the ELT and the Giant Magellan - are under construction. When complete, they will provide direct views of planets in other solar systems. This will be an astronomical first.

Celestial objects have been observed and studied since the beginning of time. The planets and stars have helped human beings understand the cosmos, the way it functions, and its impact on our lives. Since Galileo Galilei became the first astronomer to use a telescope for his observations in the 17th century, humanity has devised newer and better ways to study the universe.

But what will these new facilities help us to discover? How will they change the way we look at our universe? And will they help answer the one question many are curious about: Is there extraterrestrial life?

"Life is there, potentially, in the whole universe. And when it arrives in a place where you know it's comfortable and can be developed, it does," says Chilean astrophysicist Dr Maria Teresa Ruiz.

"Although we have no evidence, I would find it very, extremely strange that we would be the only ones in the universe. There are so many, so many stars, so many planets around them. I'm sure there could be life in many of them."

Ruiz is known for discovering the brown dwarf star system named Kelu-1, a sub star located in constellation Hydra, approximately 61 light-years away from earth. She is a pioneer, the first woman to have received a doctorate from Princeton University, and the first woman to receive Chile's national prize for exact sciences.

She says the advanced telescopes will help study the atmospheres of distant planets, to search for traces of oxygen or other indicators of life.

"When you see the universe through these big eyes, you are going to see something nobody else has seen before ... Often the case is what you see, the unknown, is the most interesting thing; something you cannot predict. It's like opening a window to the unknown," she says.

Dr Jose Maza Sancho also believes in the possibility of extraterrestrial life, even if not necessarily always intelligent life.

"There are eight million forms of life on earth. Most of them are bacteria, but bacteria is a form of life," he says. "My suspicion is that at the very least there are 100 billion places in the universe with life."

However, he adds: "But from one galaxy to the next, [for example] a big galaxy like the Andromeda galaxy, the distance is more than two million light-years. If you say 'hello, are you there?' in two million years your message will reach Andromeda. And if they say 'yes, we're here, what do you want?' another two million years for the message to return."

Sancho is a bold exponent of a number of extraordinary theories, including humanity landing on Mars and developing into a multi-planetary society as soon as possible.

"The next challenge, the next intellectual challenge, is to go to Mars," he says, "because it is possible".

"When we went to the moon, all technology got an improvement, enormously. Our life - you or mine, and everybody's life - changed forever because of the dream to go to the moon. The only way to survive in Mars is to have another technology. And if we develop the technology for a few of us to live on Mars, that technology is going to change our life on earth forever."

"It's a big challenge, but if we are able to develop the atmosphere in Mars, we will be able to clean our atmosphere. If we develop big machines like that to survive in Mars, those machines applied massively on earth, we could be taking out of the atmosphere as much carbon dioxide as we are putting in."

This week two of Chile's top astronomers, Dr Maria Teresa Ruiz and Dr Jose Maza Sancho, talk to Al Jazeera.

-

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Peter Mutharika has governed the small African nation of Malawi since 2014.

He is a lawyer and professor who ran for a second five-year term in elections earlier this year.

But opposition parties said there were irregularities in the vote - and the high court temporarily prevented the results from being released.

The electoral commission has since declared the 79-year-old Mutharika the winner of that vote leading to thousands of Malawians to protest against that decision.

Police fired tear gas at protesters as the government accused the opposition of attempting to overthrow Mutharika by force.

Now, as he begins his new term, Mutharika faces several issues - including corruption, poverty and healthcare.

We will ask him what he intends to do to tackle these challenges.

Malawi's president Peter Mutharika, talks to Al Jazeera.

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Peter Mutharika has governed the small African nation of Malawi since 2014.

He is a lawyer and professor who ran for a second five-year term in elections earlier this year.

But opposition parties said there were irregularities in the vote - and the high court temporarily prevented the results from being released.

The electoral commission has since declared the 79-year-old Mutharika the winner of that vote leading to thousands of Malawians to protest against that decision.

Police fired tear gas at protesters as the government accused the opposition of attempting to overthrow Mutharika by force.

Now, as he begins his new term, Mutharika faces several issues - including corruption, poverty and healthcare.

We will ask him what he intends to do to tackle these challenges.

Malawi's president Peter Mutharika, talks to Al Jazeera.

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To some, they are heroes, while others called them outlaws.

Even their name - the Fellagha - had different meanings for different people. While the word literally translates to "bandits", in 20th century Tunisia, they were known as those who resisted the French presence in North Africa's smallest country.

In Tunisia, they were the resistance fighters who launched a campaign against French colonial rule which, together with political negotiations, culminated in independence in 1956.

Drawn mainly from the mountainous rural south of the country, the Fellagha drew inspiration from their ancestors - rebels who had opposed the French immediately after colonial rule began in the 1880s.

By the 1920s, resistance to the French presence was growing, and by World War Two the Fellagha were launching regular attacks on French military installations in the country. In 1952, the armed resistance was officially launched and by 1954, Fellagha ranks had swollen to several thousand fighters.

Although the Fellagha faced a military opposition that was better equipped, better funded, more experienced, and had much greater numbers, they were determined. While on paper, the French army was a far superior force than the Fellagha, the Tunisians had local knowledge and public support on their side.

Like other North African independence movements, Tunisia's decades-long fight against colonial rule also began as a mainly political one - but was not ultimately achieved without a violent struggle.

In this two-part documentary, we take a look at the Fellagha mainly through the eyes of its old fighters: men who fought the French, and then continued to take issue with the country's new government even after independence.

PT 2: By 1955, France and Tunisian nationalists, led by Habib Bourguiba, reached a political compromise which gave Tunisia partial self-rule. But this deal divided the country, with Bourguiba supporting it but the more hard-line Salah Ben Youssef refusing anything less than full independence. Both sought support from the Fellagha fighters who were divided as to whether to settle for peace or continue to attack the French. Tunisia finally gained independence in 1956 but as new divisions opened up, the country found itself on the brink of civil war.

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To some, they are heroes, while others called them outlaws.

Even their name - the Fellagha - had different meanings for different people. While the word literally translates to "bandits", in 20th century Tunisia, they were known as those who resisted the French presence in North Africa's smallest country.

In Tunisia, they were the resistance fighters who launched a campaign against French colonial rule which, together with political negotiations, culminated in independence in 1956.

Drawn mainly from the mountainous rural south of the country, the Fellagha drew inspiration from their ancestors - rebels who had opposed the French immediately after colonial rule began in the 1880s.

By the 1920s, resistance to the French presence was growing, and by World War Two the Fellagha were launching regular attacks on French military installations in the country. In 1952, the armed resistance was officially launched and by 1954, Fellagha ranks had swollen to several thousand fighters.

Although the Fellagha faced a military opposition that was better equipped, better funded, more experienced, and had much greater numbers, they were determined. While on paper, the French army was a far superior force than the Fellagha, the Tunisians had local knowledge and public support on their side.

Like other North African independence movements, Tunisia's decades-long fight against colonial rule also began as a mainly political one - but was not ultimately achieved without a violent struggle.

In this two-part documentary, we take a look at the Fellagha mainly through the eyes of its old fighters: men who fought the French, and then continued to take issue with the country's new government even after independence.

PT 2: By 1955, France and Tunisian nationalists, led by Habib Bourguiba, reached a political compromise which gave Tunisia partial self-rule. But this deal divided the country, with Bourguiba supporting it but the more hard-line Salah Ben Youssef refusing anything less than full independence. Both sought support from the Fellagha fighters who were divided as to whether to settle for peace or continue to attack the French. Tunisia finally gained independence in 1956 but as new divisions opened up, the country found itself on the brink of civil war.

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- Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera

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