Talk to Al Jazeera

Coronavirus has upended lives and workplaces around the world, with more than a third of the globe under lockdown.

At the United Nations headquarters in New York, where about 10,000 people usually work, a skeleton staff of a few hundred is on site, ensuring the world body's vital operations continue - such as peacekeeping and humanitarian operations.

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads fast, the UN is critically concerned about those most vulnerable - especially refugees and people trapped in conflict situations.

The UN has launched a $2bn global humanitarian appeal to assist fragile states and those most vulnerable.

It says prevention and suppression of the virus must be a priority for leaders of all countries.

Leading UN officials have also called for all conflicts to cease and warring parties to focus their efforts on tackling the coronavirus.

To discuss the global efforts against COVID-19 and the risks facing the world's most vulnerable populations, Talk to Al Jazeera speaks to Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general; Mark Lowcock, the under-secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs; and Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

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COVID-19 has killed thousands and, as of March 25, 2020, has infected at least 400,000 people worldwide. And those figures are expected to grow in the coming months.

It all started in December last year, when cases of an unusual pneumonia were reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Most of those affected by the unknown virus seemed to have something in common. They were working at the Huanan Seafood Market.

As the Chinese health authorities were trying to identify the causes of the illness, the numbers kept growing. On January 7, The World Health Organization announced it had identified the new virus. Four days later, 41 people had been diagnosed in China and the first death was reported. By January 13, cases in other countries began to appear. And the death toll in China jumped from tens to hundreds to thousands.

In the coming weeks and months, governments worldwide took different measures to stop the outbreak of the coronavirus, but it was too late.

On March 11, the WHO declared the outbreak a pandemic. For many, COVID-19 has changed the world as we know it, from school closures to closing borders. The restrictions put in place to ease the effects of the pandemic mean we have to stay where we are.

So, is the world doing enough to overcome this global health crisis? And what will it take to win the battle against COVID-19?

Find out as the executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme, Dr Mike Ryan, talks to Al Jazeera.

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ISIL made headlines around the world in 2014, when its fighters pushed out Iraqi soldiers and took control of cities like Mosul and Sinjar.

And in what became known as the Sinjar massacre, thousands of Yazidi men, women and children were killed. In response to ISIL’s rapid territorial gains, the United States and its allies formed a coalition to fight the armed group.

They launched air strikes on ISIL hideouts, its fighters and convoys. In October last year, a US military operation in northwest Syria resulted in the death of ISIL’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

In 2018, the United Nations secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, announced the appointment of a special adviser to support efforts to investigate ISIL’s crimes. As the head of the UN investigative team, the special adviser’s mandate is to collect, preserve and store evidence.

But, how are the investigations conducted? And will they bring justice to the countless victims in Iraq and Syria?

The UN special adviser, Karim Khan, talks to al Jazeera about his efforts to investigate ISIL’s crimes.

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It has been more than a year since the former cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan became Pakistan's prime minister.

During his campaign, Khan promised to turn his county's economy around. But the fight to ease inflation has not been easy.

The Pakistani rupee lost 35 percent of its value during Khan's first year in office. And despite some encouraging news from the International Monetary Fund, many are still struggling as a result of the country's weak economy.

Pakistan's location brings a lot of opportunity as well as challenges.

A lot of hope has been placed on its agreement with China to set up an economic corridor. But it is not clear if the ambitious project will benefit both sides.

Relations with its other neighbour, India, have been strained in recent months after New Delhi revoked the autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir. There has also been tension over India's controversial citizenship law that many say discriminates against Muslims.

Elsewhere, Islamabad will also be looking to see how the recently signed deal between the US and Afghanistan's Taliban will affect its policies.

We discuss all this and more with Pakistan's top diplomat, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

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After nearly two decades of the longest-running US war - the United States and Afghanistan's Taliban have signed an historic agreement.

With the potential to end the war in Afghanistan, the long-awaited agreement includes:

a timeline of 14 months for all US and NATO troops to withdraw

a Taliban guarantee that Afghan soil will not be used to threaten US security

and negotiations with the Afghan government by March 10; leading to a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire.

Years of shuttle diplomacy were behind the signing and Qatar played a central role in the negotiations. It hosted the months-long discussions between representatives of the Taliban and US officials in its capital, Doha.

Now, with an agreement in place to stop the fighting and the impending withdrawal of foreign troops, can Afghans negotiate a deal among themselves? Can peace finally come to Afghanistan?

Mutlaq bin Majed al-Qahtani, Qatar's special envoy for counterterrorism and mediation of conflict resolution, talks to Al Jazeera.

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Palestine's PM: Trump's Middle East Plan 'insult' to Palestinians

Mohammad Shtayyeh on the 'deal of the century' and why it 'erodes' possibility for peace between Palestine and Israel.

29 Feb 2020 09:53 GMT Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Palestine, Israel, Donald Trump, Middle East

US President Donald Trump describes his Middle East peace plan as "the deal of the century".

But Palestinians call it the "Swiss cheese" plan rather than a solution for a sovereign Palestinian state.

So what will happen now?

We explore the next steps for the Middle East peace process with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, on Talk to Al Jazeera.

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In Munich, global security policymakers gathered at the 56th Security Conference. Among them, Josep Borrell, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.

Borrell faces challenges ranging from Brexit, US tariffs, the Iranian nuclear deal and managing relations with eastern giants like Russia and China to conflicts like those in Libya and Yemen. The list is long.

Are the ties holding the EU member states together strong enough to withstand all this? Can they find a common vision?

We will find out more as Josep Borrell, talks to Al Jazeera.

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"Every civilisation sees itself as the centre of the world and writes its history as the central drama of human history," wrote political scientist Samuel Huntington in The Clash of Civilizations.

And it is precisely due to our poor understanding - or lack of will to understand - others' cultures that the world is as polarised as ever.

The idea of living as part of a global village is slowly fading away, allowing for the rise of nationalism.

So, can we improve relations and cooperation among nations and people? Across societies, cultures and religions? Or is the clash of civilisations inevitable?

We explore this and more as United Nations High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) Miguel Angel Moratinos, talks to Al Jazeera.

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The Nile River, at 7,000 kilometres (4,350 miles), is Africa's longest river. Its waters run through 11 countries and for the 280 million people living alongside its banks, the Nile symbolises life itself. Just as it did for those who settled along the river centuries ago.

Some fear if the dispute is not resolved, the Nile will dry up. One of the loudest voices fighting to save the river, explains exactly what is at stake.

Dr Essam Heggy, a scientist from the University of Southern California and member of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, talks to Al Jazeera and explains the significance of the Nile River.

"The Nile River is a very unique ecosystem, it's a very unique hydrological system, it is a very unique water body on our plane," Heggy says, explaining that the Nile is the only giant river that goes from the South to North and through five different climatic zones.

He also points out that the Nile is one of the oldest and most unique ecosystems on the planet.

"The Nile River is twenty to thirty million years old. Today we don't know how we can make rivers flow in a constant way for this amount of time … its existence helps us understand the Earth's evolution."

But a huge new project in Ethiopia has triggered a big dispute with Egypt and scientists are warning construction of the Renaissance Dam, aimed at boosting Ethiopia's electricity source, could cause irreversible damage, not only in Egypt but the entire region.

"It's a great river but in a very challenging place," Heggy says.

"This whole conception that you can suffocate the Nile, and yet benefit out of its resources, from the environmental perspective, it is wrong."

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Tensions between the United States and Iran escalated in early January after US President Donald Trump ordered the killing of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.

The attack also killed Iraq's Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF).

In response, Iran fired more than a dozen missiles at two US bases.

All of that was happening on Iraqi soil, a nation once again caught up between a regional giant and a military superpower.

Trump is adamant that the attack was "self-defence" and that Soleimani posed an imminent threat - which was contradicted by Iran and the Iraqi prime minister.

And Iran says it's delivered "a slap in the face" with a missile strike which will usher in the end of US presence in the Middle East.

So is the latest US-Iran crisis really over? Will the US heed calls for its forces to leave Iraq?

Al Jazeera was given rare access to the sprawling Ain al-Assad base after the Iranian strike. We asked the US-led coalition if the threats from Iran-backed militias still loom. And in a rare TV appearance, Mohammad Mohie, spokesman of the Iran-backed Shia paramilitary group Kataib Hezbollah, talks to Al Jazeera.

Asked about the US government calling Kataib Hezbollah a threat to Iraq's peace and security, Mohie says: "We are Iraqis and from Iraqi soil. We have confronted US troops; they were occupation troops according to the UN. After 2003, the US troops were occupation troops so it was the right of the Iraqi people to resist. And with our joint efforts we expelled US troops. So the return of the US troops to this area is stirring problems by inciting violence and supporting terrorist groups and Takfiris. Those groups threaten the security of the region, this is the main reason for instability in the Middle East and it is the main threat to everyone’s security. We are the sons of this area, we have the right to defend it, to live in it peacefully."

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