cut to the citizens from traveling to saudi arabia for example to the emirates this is a culture of the g.c.c. you know there's intermarriage there's families so this is deeply personal it's affecting families seeing each other it's affecting students who are so that is something that people here feel deeply upset about but the general mood is one that has come out on top of her that it has taken the moral high ground and everyone still remaining very very strongly behind their leadership and certainly don't want this government to concede anything do you think people have gotten used to it all stephanie because you could call it a crisis when you're of a cross or you could call it a natural shift a complete change in the way the culture relates with its neighbors over a good many number of years to come. absolutely and i think in a sense this is you know we're seeing life continue as normal many people not aware that it is the one year anniversary i think it's also many people will tell you thanks to the government and what they have done to try and bridge the gap of what was book a did in the sense of particularly when it first started the air land and

sea blockade people extremely nervous not knowing how this is going to play out people ran on the supermarkets and within a day or two the government had found alternative sources from iran from turkey the supermarket shelves were stock prices have gone up somewhat but not hugely so i think peoples are very grateful at how it's been managed but of course yes i think a lot of people you speak to israel will tell you that they don't see this ending any time soon they're aware of how complicated the political relations are nazir were mentioning earlier in some of those reports you know it's almost like saving face they don't see how in the short term at least this is going to end because the blockading countries haven't achieved the long list of demands that they wanted and again they agreed that absolutely under no circumstances should concede to that so i think people have become used to it they're of course not happy about it but as they say they remain strong they remain very supportive of their government and their leader and they will continue to just you know enjoy your blockade as it goes

on. the qatari cultural village here and thank you stephanie. well after the blockade began it was revealed the blockading countries didn't just want to isolate carter diplomatically there were reports solve a possible invasion of carter even suggestions of regime change mohamed valise finds that this portrait of the amir of qatar shift to mean but hamad advantage has become one of the most potent symbols of nationalism here in qatar it was born from the crisis that shook this nation a year ago to the day and that's for a reason it took the blockade in countries several weeks to make any demands of qatar and the list of demands that finally emerged didn't include what was later known to be the most shocking part of those countries plan to overthrow cottle's government their primary option was a military invasion that's according to the emir of kuwait who made the revelation in september during

a visit to the white house he said his peacemaking efforts had helped avoid a war between qatar and its gulf neighbors during the early stages of the crisis qatar accepted what may have been a timely turkish offer of military assistance with the war option put aside saudi arabia u.a.e. behind and egypt began to try other methods to destabilize the telescope and if tried every possible means in order to these that he still allies the government or at least changed their policy of this of this country but i think it. has backfired . and they got exactly the exact opposite results here i think the qataris they managed to say a convent all these things by signing an agreement on combating the finest off terrorism with the united states. saudi and you east fonso the media outlets openly called for a coup in doha and began to incite cutty's to rise against the emea they also began

a series of attempts to promote an alternative leadership from within catalysts ruling al thani family saudi media broadcast photos of what they said was a meeting between man and she highly been abdullah advantage a senior member of the ruling family but with no role in government it gave rise to speculation and rumors about his alleged aspirations for power but months later chef abdullah appeared in a video to announce that he was being held against his will inside the palace in the united arab emirates at the request of mohammed saeed the crown prince of abu dhabi. in a similarly desperate move saudi funded and hired a newspaper featured on its first page a nonexistent family dissident whom it gave the name sowed but using financial incentives and promises of influence the saudis also try to buy the allegiance of certain tribes that straddle the border with qatar but qatari say that process to undermine their leadership had the opposite effect can talk bottom and raw they

expected us to support the blockade on our country to give up soon to stand against our own government but none of that happened of course as you see we stand behind our emir and we are more united than before the last sort of accius axially and their plot has backfired because it doesn't make sense for us to undermine our own country we support our enemy in every step that he takes their meals portrayed painted by a local artist turned into a powerful symbol of national unity plastering the facades of high rise buildings becoming almost only present across the country are the symbols against the blockade have also been created qatar considers the fifth of june day in which there was a foreign plot against its sovereignty its leadership and its economic development that date is now set in stone here and commemorated through this feat of modern engineering the message is not only has water the plot that was meant to bring

about its demise but it's also become stronger because of. mohamed of all reporting there from what's now known as the five slash six interchange here into how the fifth of june isn't right magilla ansari is with us here professor of political sociology at county university i've lost track of the number of times you and i have sat in the studio and talked about this but it's been a few over the past year hasn't it thirdly do you feel we've progressed any further as far as a resolution i mean it's good that you put that in there because i was going to say it has got our progress certainly has got a progress to. in this year rapidly on many fronts but when it comes to the crisis it is very clear that the locating countries plus egypt find themselves in a situation where a continued crisis is better than a solution that could get solved in. losing you know as we say in arabic the faces water if you will so using the face is what it really is basically meaning being embarrassed and it's and this term has been used

a lot during the crisis to describe how this crisis and come to a solution which is basically the same as saying safe and saving face but what are they getting out of it what are those four countries getting out of it at the moment they were hoping to get a lot of it from the beginning of the crisis now we all know that that did not happen now it is what they could lose if the crisis and. they have an emotional attachment to the crisis now they have a very politically oriented media outreach about the crisis that they cannot take back any solution to the crisis at the moment will seem like a defeat which is something that they don't do not want to do so as with the other crisis they are involved in like yemen libya and other places the only reason the only way forward is to basically go forward and hope that there is a change in the climate in the future that could allow them to claim a second victory let's rewind a year seeing as we are reflecting on the incident itself if you like when this all happened a year ago to think this all could have actually turned out very differently if i

hadn't stood up and showed some resilience and if the population hadn't said united the way they did that this could have all turned out very very differently certainly i mean if you look back at the two thousand and thirteen crisis. which actually exulted in an agreement between all the countries after that has tried to cater to the locating country than in many ways supporting their efforts in yemen to some extent lessening. media criticism of their positions of various issues all of that of course it does even help in mitigating the situation does help in making the looking countries look favorably. now it is very clear that the only solution with these countries is to basically set independence a set so venti and move forward away from the country there is no solution where we can see going back again to concessions to these countries will the relationship has changed irrevocably hasn't this thing even if the court and court crisis ended

tomorrow you can go back on a lot of the things that have been said and done exactly and this is not an issue only concerning like media and official statements even when it comes to trust in the in the business side of it i mean in the markets now. who would trust investing form cut out in one of the locating countries who would trust importing products from these countries it doesn't make any sense because at any moment a political decision could actually hamper all this business void like what happened in dubai during this crisis and with the brothers coming in from saudi arabia therefore there's no taking back what happened the way forward says independence and sovereignty and it says a balanced relationship with all our neighbors in the region while in the same time making sure that we have sustainable diplomacy which is a balance with all the powers in the world a good deal in ship with russia good relationship with the united states. working relationship with europe and southeast asia and africa and normal relations with

other neighbors like iran and so forth because it is very difficult for us now to think of the future of couple without thinking of this balance that could maintain . in front of any future crisis much of i'm sorry it's a pleasure always talking to you thank you for coming in thank you so let's talk more about these efforts to end the crisis kuwait has been a key mediator it's a mirror. job at all sabah it's been urging gulf unity but so far you'd have to say his efforts haven't really paid off lived through kuwait city man our correspondent jamal. welcome all yes the those are for us as you say some people will say they haven't achieved their ultimate aim which is bringing about an end to this crisis a crisis that has not only deeply affected the countries directly involved namely a cutter in the three nations blockading gets but also for i think the very fabric

the very future of the g.c.c. the gulf cooperation council which for decades many have seen as the main source of stability in an extremely unstable region but what's been significant over the past few months is that although the kuwaitis have managed to achieve certain milestones like preventing this crisis from transforming into a military one transforming from a diplomatic one to a military one there is a growing sense amongst certain sections of society actually that they could be targeted by these same hawkish petitions and political figures in the united arab emirates and saudi arabia those who have been going out after qatar and spearing qatar as they believe in terms of the p.r. campaigns there are some here in kuwait you have similar fears having said that the government is adamant that it will continue to try and find a solution through this crisis and we spoke to some of the members of society here as well as politicians to find out a bit more that's almost ninety years old she. is the oldest

leader in the g.c.c. he's nicknamed the wise man of the gulf it was no surprise then that when half of the gulf council members decided to impose a land air and sea blockade on qatar throwing the region into chaos and threatening the g.c.c. as very existence that it was him and his government who stepped in to try and solve the crisis. from the beginning kuwait has also side arabia the united arab emirates and behind to sit down and discuss their concerns with qatar and whilst doha has repeatedly expressed its willingness for unconditional dialogue the three blockading nations have rejected kuwait's call that doesn't mean however that kuwait's efforts have not come to fruition a few months after the blockade on qatar was announced chiefs of all revealed during his visit to washington that he had managed to prevent the crisis from escalating into a military one. suddenly dispute came into existence thank god now

what is important is that we have stopped any military action. adamant is not to allow the crisis to deepen even more kuwait went ahead with hosting the annual g.c.c. summits in december. optimists were hoping that it would provide a breakthrough while the pessimists thought the summit itself would never convene ultimately it did and the fact that coates managed to pull it off albeit with saudi the u.a.e. rain sending junior representation was considered a success olive shows he is a professor of political science at kuwait university and while the current crisis has provided him with great teaching material for his classes he believes the g.c.c. is facing its most dangerous phase in its history that we have instability we have threat from. state actors from non-state actors you have terrorism and you do not have really the the luxury of the reeling with all these threats on an individual

basis or with a fragmented g.c.c. so we hope that color heads rational heads would prevail despite the attempts to mediate an insistence from the country's leadership to maintain neutrality many in kuwait believe that the u.a.e. and saudi arabia could turn on them true. the blockading nations have not demonstrated any willingness to solve this crisis after kuwait managed to foil their military plans these countries were betting on time hoping the siege would succeed but that too has failed. those currently in office including this lawmaker who was head of the parliament's foreign affairs committee when the crisis began last year tells me that's a solution can and will be found if you can let me a problem there are efforts that continue behind the scenes i'm confident and optimistic that we shall see a solution in the near future my hope is that we all focus on the positives and not dwell on the negatives this is the biggest crisis facing the gulf cooperation

council since one thousand nine hundred back then kuwait was being invaded and its independence under threats many believe it is the memory of those dark days that continues to push the leadership here to try and find a solution to this crisis and was that solution remains elusive twelve months since the blockade on qatar began the fact of the matter is were not for her way to mediation efforts this crisis could have been a lot worse. al-jazeera. because the u.s. has another key player in this dispute but for many america's position has been confusing donald trump initially supported the blockade in nations but a since offered to mediate himself from washington d.c. roslyn jordan with four a year ago president donald trump took sides in the dispute between carter and its neighbors the nation of qatar unfortunately has historically been a funder of terrorism and a very high level so we had

a decision to make do we take the easy road or do we finally take a hard but necessary action. we have to stop the funding of terrorism. this was secretary of state mike bomb pale in saudi arabia a few weeks ago both unity is necessary we need to achieve it the trumpet ministrations policy shift on the cutter blockade mabel clear cut but it's not after trump indorse the blockade the secretary of state at the time rex tillerson and defense secretary jim mattis had to convince the president to soften his position. why long running diplomatic and military ties including ten thousand u.s. troops at the dade air base the us was also on the verge of making a twelve billion dollars deal with qatar for a new fleet of f. fifteen fighter jets what's more washington had asked doha to host taliban and

hamas offices in order to facilitate long term peace talks with their enemies. finally tillerson and maddest thought the blockade could harm the u.s. as war against eisel as well as let iran expand its influence in the region experts say they succeeded by convincing the president he had fallen into a trap set by the saudis and. it was recognized that would present trump coming into office surrounding himself by. non-experts and people who had been. not to have been in government or in the diplomatic service that this would be an opportunity to score a long term grievance washington's goal from then on support kuwait's efforts to broker an end to the crisis but mr president we have a problem with our neighbors and in both phone calls and meetings a demand that all parties in the cutter dispute solved their differences the united states withdrew from the iran agreement and there is an understanding in order to

roll back iran's regional quest for head. many arab states our friends and partners in the region need to cooperate the saudis and m. roxy's haven't stopped trying to undermine doha's status in washington but u.s. officials are pushing for the blockade to end before the u.s. summit now scheduled for september because in their view the rift is more trouble than it's worth. jordan al-jazeera washington. let's look at carter's finances now because when this crisis began a year ago the monetary impact was immediate and harsh anecdotally first of all there were massive queues at foreign exchanges and there was a shortage of u.s. dollars at that point as well but it's the numbers that tell the real story about twenty three billion dollars left the country in the first two months as worried investors and experts moved their money to safety it led the qatari government to inject thirty eight and a half billion dollars into the economy

a lot of it going into the financial sector and into imports to make sure that food and supplies could get into the country mostly by speaking of the aviation sector and everything related to it took a hit to the number of flights into cars or decrease the big carriers like emirates and saudi has stopped flying into doha it led to a drop in visitor arrivals we're now talking november at this point and it's figures like that which lead to carter's non hydrocarbon growth that is the economy outside of oil and natural gas falling to four percent in twenty seventeen it was five point six percent the previous year what's surprising though after hearing all that is that carter's economy is now recovering and proving resilient these numbers come from the i.m.f. which is expecting growth of two point six percent this year three percent in twenty nine thousand which isn't bad for a country where the only land border has been closed for an entire year cut has had to spend a lot to keep its head above water since june of twenty seventeen but so far it

seems to be working well joining us here in the studio now we have a specialist in monetary policy and political economy out of central bank a pleasure having you with us here and you know i've just seen from the fitch ratings agency that they are revising carter's outlook to stable from negative i mean that's a good start does that show that qatar has weathered this past year and is actually improving it was expected to begin with the reason for that it was a political teachin in the beginning to begin with the beginning of the crisis along with a lot of the. prices and squeezed budgets so these facts that i've known are improving for this is expected to be a good two to begin with and let me first start with a comment on what the annual report this is right now you know regarding capital flight this is we're not talking here about capital flight in the norm of the since the mostly this was a deliberate deposit withdrawal by the blockading country in order in a context of a general more general economic warfare against qatar to destabilize the currency

and trigger further capital flow with the potential consequences of high inflation and draining foreign reserves and destabilize the economy with the final objective of. economic collapse and the regime collapse so i'm not totally surprised the economy is is resilient as you mentioned in your report and. after a good shape actually. almost a year ago i was in your apartment. because i was talking about this and they said this blockade is ineffective and distant two failed and we'll be surprised to see otherwise and there are reasons for this it cost a lot of money there initially cut they had to dip into its reserves and spend quite a bit of money to stabilize everything do you think that had a long term effect and the fact that the borders are still close the blockade still

in place money still needs what they did the initial impact has. an impact to to stabilize the economy is not because we lost a lot from our neighbor to be going with if you look at the g.c.c. economy the structure of the g.c.c. economy carefully you examine it you see the the a discipline for the failure of the blockade is there right there these economy are weak structurally weak the ski coming out in a diversified they all are specialized they are all specialize in exacting one national resources and it's the rest of the. more than importing in exchange. most who are in need of consumption good capital good labor from overseas the for there is not much to exchange between them and to trade between them and to pressure qatar through that is sanction these economies are not these can not industrialized they are not productive investor wise or a good culture why they don't export to qatar a missionary or mechanic and do mechanical equipment or medical equipment or exotic

equipment neither a necessity was a flower green rice corn you name is sought to boycott qatar with what so. this is the fundamental this is like laid down the info destruction or the environment for the failure of the economy plus the sound economic policy adopted by qatar whether airlie are for head of the decade head of the block or like two decades ago while investing in a productive interested etc and general infrastructure and investment and for a structure which provides sources of sustainability and stability for the economy or the accountable locating policy after the imposition of the blockade yes there was limited exposure to the blockade in country in certain products like. they are the product vegetable whole but. in a group of twenty that were seeking economic integration over a decade that's was natural however these most of these products can be easily

eroded from overseas with a high flexibility and can be produced locally to significant. to a significant extent this is what will happen the government and the long haul from the beginning and diversify sources i mean of import and open the new trade line and to see an underutilized hike up as the infrastructure to bypass the brook at the counter and reach out to the original sources on the tentative sources of of import and then to ensure sustainability or flow of goods with within reasonable price for the can. thank you so much for talking finances with us in this last year thank you so much. we're going to talk about as part of the financial story consular is a one airline nation that airline is the railways and it's massively important to the country especially with as we've pointed out the land board is now closed we go to international airport now in our correspondent especially going to.

come out qatar airways has not released its twenty seventeen earnings or passenger data but the c.e.o. acknowledges its bottom line has taken a big hit for starters it lost access to eight hundred cities some passengers have grumbled about a rise in ticket prices and a more restrictive frequent flyer program the c.e.o. says this is part of a business plan to bring qatar airways in line with its competitors one thing is certain the state owned airline is fighting to mitigate the impact of this walking . qatar airways seems to be adhering to an arab proverb that says right the bad things in sand the good things on a piece of marble the state owned airline says despite the challenges of the year old blockade it received numerous industry accolades including best airline of twenty seventeen at that impact us that increased

a lot of flying time it put pressure on my operational cost but did that not stop the will and the determination of us to keep on a path of growth qatar airways says it's still auditing its books from last year and can't say exactly how much money the blockade has cost the airline but it says the losses are quote substantial. prior to the blockade its profits were soaring in two thousand and sixteen it earned more than five hundred million dollars a historic high and flew twenty percent more passengers than the year before. qatar airways says it's defeating the blockade by implementing a strategy of expansion in the last year the airline has added a new fleet of planes allowing it to fly greater distances to more destinations when it lost access to routes in saudi arabia the united arab emirates egypt and

bahrain it added them elsewhere and it forged international partnerships in the united states and italy but qatar airways has seen a drop in passengers. the cargo division has managed to fill the void not only has it not posted any losses it has managed to maintain its perch as one of the top three cargo companies in the world. for more cargo perspective it's a lot easier to redeploy that capacity so what we have lost with the g.c.c. countries we've managed to redeploy the challenges all still to be able to serve eighteen days to missions. we used to serve the c.e.o. of qatar airways says the airline can shoulder losses for the foreseeable future and there's no need to ask the government for a bailout but he admits it will be a very different scenario for the company if the blockade becomes a long term reality for qatar natasha going in. doha. one of the

major challenges of the blockade came when the four countries stopped selling fresh produce to count so immediately stocks needed to be replaced on supermarket shelves but there was also a push to start doing it with local projects how do you do that darwin only six percent of your land is actually fall mobil you get creative flora birdman they went to the northern cotta. these cows at the unlikely heroes of the year long blockade led by saudi arabia the saudis went almost overnight from providing eighty percent of conscious fresh milk to their room. to cushion the blow the farm flew and shipped in thousands of cows from europe and america and they bought state of the art technology to run a large dairy farm in the desert there's a total new infrastructure there's a total new dairy industry which wasn't a year ago and actually in fresh milk we already self-sufficient one year after we

have about ten thousand cows. by the end of the year we'll have let's say around twenty thousand cows so we still in the growing face in the building first everything the farm needs is made that from the dry feet to the dairy product and i'm told this factory with food be run by robots now one of the latest challenges is to be out in the first hearing coming before the fray and telling you the company that on the day they are the first three dollars from island where i'm going to get them killed in a single hour after they think it's really a problem to keep the rays of the warm brown the company's vice president says there was too much competition from other gulf countries before the blockade to get a share in the market it's open big opportunities for this enterprise news in order to develop themselves develop their own companies by creating small and medium size

companies in order to fill the gap and now he's looking to expand beyond without a plan to expand more by the end of the year by bringing two more shipment in order to start exporting to outside. we will be targeting first like twenty countries of the one billion dollars worth of all food imports to ca to three years ago the saudis and the united arab emirates sold about. so who else is filling the gaps in the market now we were also able to find a thermos of products specially for a lot of the intelligence and a lot of the food supply also the world so he. needs. all across europe for every product there is the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them form of bodies if you close one door there is a thousand dollars worth of the many countries the blockade was

a wake up call to what self-sufficiency and it's allowed new international investors to take a slice of the pie to lure about demand the al-jazeera. we keep talking about the impact of this blockade on the economy on supply lines on political relationships but the human cost of the blockade pretty much a measurable you know cut as national human rights council says the blockade affected more than thirteen thousand people over four thousand cases of human rights violations were reported in the past year and in effect all aspects of daily life education health care the right to perform religious rituals whole property freedom of movement and perhaps most crucially the right to family reunification remember this is a region where family ties go beyond borders and yet the blockaded nations forcibly deported kothari s. and separated children from their parents and also crack down on their own nationals for expressing any sympathy for kata by fixing jail terms and penalties

so there's a really important people story to tell here victoria gave him is going to do that the political crisis in the gulf is threatening to ted this family apart. is qatari but her children are bahraini citizens and gulf countries children take the citizenship of their father rashid bahraini passport runs out next year he believes if he continues to define ordered by bahrain to leave cattle he'll lose his behind passport and be stateless once my passport expires what do do i. do i stay here and not pursue my future because i don't have a passport because i did not want to go to the country that i hold the citizenship nothing else but the citizenship and that's some sort of leverage that they have against me it's not just families living in limbo students to have had their lives turned upside down last year at least seven hundred m.

a rotty bahraini and saudi students were forced to abandon their courses at universities like this warning cattle after they were ordered to return home by their governments hundreds of qatari students with them back to doha unable to complete their courses or take their final year exams we spoke to students at georgetown university in cattle in the days following the blockade being imposed and again one year on to find out what life has been like since you see that some of the students don't have records you see that they're being exiled from their education which is a right they see that they have to start all over again sometimes in certain cases and then they're not granted access to where they're supposed to so it's been a very. ugly war against education and humanity as a whole i know someone who is educated with person of disrupted she was a medical student approaching graduation. and catholic.