the very day a widely criticized repatriation agreement between the governments of bangladesh and me and more was to begin the anger was all too apparent and the fear was palpable if you don't like we're so afraid that if they send one of us back to myanmar today tomorrow they'll send back 10 and the day after tomorrow they'll send back 20 idea if we were given citizenship in myanmar then there would be no need to take us back there we would go back on our own we must remember the rancho among the most persecuted minorities in the world. and. you should watch the old woman who did you see. that fight took to muscatine mohammed served as malaysia's prime minister for 22 years from 1901 to 2003 but the 94 year old veteran politician return to politics a few years back to oppose the political force he was once paul told the sun

national coalition which should move malaysia since its independence from britain in 1970. during mohammad's 1st 10 years malaysia's prime minister the country experienced a future of reputable nice asian and economic growth for the country's diverse population millions of muslims hindus buddhists and christians living side by side . his life achievements were recognised the opening session of doha for 2019. during his acceptance speech he did not hold back from expressing his views in the modern world. is confronted we think these. over to says they need both the google economy growth indefeasible writing for nature political social and environmental talent just in southeast asia then the decided to work as a group then there is to be. and prosperity talk to my head here also

discuss the state of the global economy and its interconnectedness we don't believe in playing sanctions to force countries to accept certain a good deal the good and the change of government it is not only their particular country. but all the partners also we will. economy in a we it is a form of dictatorship addicted to cheap that is worse than that in that can't be easy international. and before the world leaders attending the ceremony he also talked about his country's foreign policy. he said friendly countries. we want to be friends with everyone and in me of than. one albeit exception. our population is too small to provide

a good market we need the world the global market here and many other laws a big market in the us saying if you need to play against it and. not support the imposition of the e.u. need a letter of st in by the us to begin. what is the malaysian prime minister going to step down in 2020 and who would he endorsed to be his successor these are some of the questions malaysia's prime minister dr mahathir mohamad in this special edition talked about is here to do her 429000. i'm sami's 8 and senior presenter from al-jazeera international it's my absolute pleasure to be here with you today my pleasure to be here as well with his excellency told dr mahathir mohamad the prime minister of malaysia where as we

begin an interview thank you very much for talking to our desire 1st of all a pleasure to be here with you. you've accepted now this a chief mint award and i want to delve back into some of the highlights in your career you were nicknamed bump up hammer down and for those who are not familiar with that means the father of modernization it's in reference of course to the dramatic transformation that took place in your country while you were prime minister i want to know though how you see yourself do you think malaysia could have made that adjuvant in that transformation without you well in order to. develop what county the 1st need is for stability. is a multi-racial nation and normally monthly niches are not stable so the 1st job that i had to do was to make sure that all the different pieces work

together for the country then of course that means of course that all the different races are represented in the government and they can speak for their own arrays and also for the nation and because everybody has a fair share in the governance of the country they feel said that their problems will be taken gail and that leads to is to be where development becomes possible but many countries have tried that approach malaysia has been more successful than some just to give an example malaysia's g.d.p. upon independence was comparable to ghana for example but today it's around 6 times higher surely they have been are the secrets to this success. well the secret is that when you please as

a leader in it and he you must have some ideas you might have some ideas lean be prone watching what happens in other countries in the case so we decided that is it a little u.s. we should look east because in the east we find countries like japan korea and the like and these seem to have been able to overcome their difficulties and develop their country east become symbolisation policy and that has contributed much there was our development one of the things your renowned for is a crucial decision you made during the 997 asian crisis not to follow the i.m.f. prescriptions and it turned out well for malaysia in the end malaysia transition that crisis quicker than some of the other countries that did follow the international advice i want to there what made you decide to take

a bold decision and and break ranks with others. well for a year i watched the country's currency being devalued and and then as very poor we thought of all kinds of solutions but not being finance here not being an economy. greed. does not prevent me from this group not prevent me from accepting ridiculous ideas or ideas that are not common did you ever have any doubts i must have been a difficult decision to make while you was afraid to dream decision that me the war . but i thought that you would work then well we had to take the rich an we plunge into the sea and fortunately for us. from depreciate the because we really and from then then on with malaysia recover

do you think the i.m.f. still continues to give sometimes the wrong advice to countries well there may have eventually agreed that what i did was right and i hope that there will not be. conventional as to always recommend the normal thing in the or. the expected thing. how was your time in politics changed you not just as a politician but as a human being. he said to resign i've been in corrupt government for 22 years thinking their young people should take over and i went to retire rarely but after some time lots of people came and asked me please do something about what's happening in the country and eventually i had to

do something and then it was coming back. the head of state once told me that no matter how principled you start out in politics at some point you are going to have to as he put it down so with the devil do you agree with that how have you ever had to make decisions which haven't sat 100 percent comfortably with your conscience will when you are ignorant but the normal things then you can do to be abnormal things in times of course i get frightened with my own decisions but you had that out something in order to solve any should it seems not being soft through conventional means so you never had to make decisions that you i mean do you have any regrets you do feel like the

something you would have done differently. there are things that i feel because during my time i mean this is. the wish i had thought would solve the problem by and then they have found that it was not effective. what achievement are you most proud of and what would you consider to be that biggest mistake well in our country that immediately. but they are not developing equally. in. they. search for wealth sample and i thought that the problem of. of culture of value system so i tried to change their belief system of the ethnic group which are behind but i feel in that effort. looking forward to the k.l.

summit the kuala lumpur summit you're the chairman of it. what must the k.l. summit achieve in december 2019 in order for it to be a success i have been watching the developments in the muslim world almost almost in kind these are not considered as developed not a single one and then we see a lot of. troubles in many muslim countries we. fairly fairly years of governance and also they have been fighting each other and they have been people from mostly in countries have run away from their own countries to seek security in other countries so these are major problems and many of them have been expelled from their country around it and thought kele in budget these are the problems we really have to understand why is it happening and if we

know why maybe we can find some solution for solutions of the nature you're talking about when it comes to uneven development one would have to look deeper into some of the countries you are referring to which according to international statistics or report indicate a level of mismanagement lack of democracy. uneven access to resources can there really be a renaissance can you even a address that properly in a summit without tackling some of these issues. well in the 1st place we need to understand the problem we need to see the background of the problem do you think the leaders of the muslim world understand that problem do you think the leaders of some of those countries who are attending the kale summit truly understand the problem the i've talked with them personally. when i met them and this seemed they

have the same concern as as many other muslim leaders and i think it's about time we see down seriously to look at this problem and to find solutions do you think the launch of the kale summit in itself is an indication of the failure of other initiatives like the oh i see. well there will be grouping or if the 2 countries. when we have too many people the finally some consensus becomes very difficult but we through only 5 countries is much easier to think you'll be more effective. you've also commented on some of the global trends going on in the world today i wonder if i can get you to talk a little bit more about them specifically about the issue of trade wars which you mentioned do you think the u.s.

and china have been too rigid in how they've approached trade issues well 3 wars do not solve anything the only and they can last people and other people not to believe that the war. so i think all conflicts with the nation should be said through new good season arbitration or a court of law that is how he's problem or. indeed the british but are they failing in that regard the u.s. and china are they being too rigid in their stances they're taking right now but there is too much politics involved not the economy sensing if you follow the economy rules i am not in economies. perhaps you can solve the problem in much better we then confront the asian and claim to. destroy each other. right and you also mentioned multilateralism and the rise of

the right are you comfortable with the direction that the current us administration the trumpet ministration is leading the world in with regard to multilateral action . well. i. bet that what you do us doing is being now is just the right thing. becoming very national nationalists is good but not at the expense of other people we believe that every country should care itself but that being. needing to be protected or secure all that's not been confronting our this is better if we learn to work together in a multilateral because wherever big country he defects other countries.

the poor countries so that is not a solution we were going along with it was month. but now nationalism still they affect many countries and the more right they did then they were left or even . as before you also mention sanctions on iran will you be rallying taking trying to take action to mitigate and counter the u.s. unilateral u.s. sanctions on iran. well our cities a very small economy by comparison to the u.s. we have it the surplus with the u.s. . obviously we don't like the idea of sanctions so what we can do is just to preach their values of. peaceful resolution to conflicts rather than confrontation sanctions and the like. you. you

also mention the issue of retirement and for any leader no matter how great a round they've had in office one of the issues that comes up is when they will leave the political stage of what will happen next one of the questions that's burning right now in the malaysian media is being talked and discussed about a lot is whether 2020 will be the last year for dr mahathir mohamad as prime minister of malaysia will it be. which probably. will 2020 be the year in which you decide to exit the office of prime minister. well we had a vision to become a fully developed country by the year 2020 unfortunately our desk said step down the leadership took a different cause different policies and that caused the the target not to be achieved in 2020 so what we have said before is that we will

still be train but we have moved. a completion in the front 2022 within 20252030 days a new approach to solving our economy problem and this time around we want everybody to benefit and not any particular group only so if i understand correctly you feel the need the country needs your leadership well beyond 2020. well i have run we said i would step down once resolve on a major problem that has been left by the previous government. and we said i will step down and. do well and candy did there has been a name by the coalition. talking about issues that need to be resolved

can you say 2020 will be the year that the sedition law the security offenses act will be repealed some of the tools that were used by previous previous administration to suppress civil liberties of course the ruling coalition your ruling coalition. it campaigned on a platform to scrap some of these but there's been criticism that you haven't moved quick enough will 2020 be the year in which some of these tools will be repressed. repealed rather. the problems were very big very serious you can only achieve success in our efforts to overcome the problems overnight it takes time we are given a cherry 5 years to accomplish this object object but in the 1st year when there are years now we have so many on the problem for example

the huge boring by the previous government should make us banka but we managed to overcome them because we managed the finances of the country much better than before we are also still very stable as a nation despite the fact that there is this sudden change of government we should limited for the past 60 years normally when they use it when he causes disruption there would be demonstration industry there would be. demand even be violence but the militia this speech for under previous government the new government when off very smoothly which is something we didn't expect because we had never experienced changes of government so to that extent we have done fairly well i would claim but there are other areas were example we found that corruption was the

one that brought down the previous government we have taken steps to send it to d. no one complains about corruption they meet complain about delays in making decisions and all that but the lease of course happens when the new government takes over and right your have made i think even your critics will agree that you've made a lot of progress but still specifically there are some issues can you give a timeline for for scrapping some of those. law as i mentioned and for passing the bill called the independent police complaints and misconduct commission which the the opposition is pushing for can you say 20 twenties when you'll get civil liberties in order. there are some laws which need to be. revise or amend but some of these laws are there but they're.

practically guaranteed by the. constitution of the country if we have to change the laws we need to get that comes to teaching of that and also. allowing us to do need or at least making changes that will enable us to change the laws but to change the constitution requires a 2 thirds majority our government has not got the 2 thirds majority we need to depend upon to all position but position of course is not very forthcoming do you think the leader of the ruling coalition on whatever him is the best person to take over at some point would you endorse him. well i can't get into the what of who would be the best person to take over because i've had bad experience i have named my successes and when they took over to do different things do you have

any regrets about i mean you've had a lot say off and on relationship with anwar ibrahim any regrets about how that has transpired over per the 4 because we were. and think this is the bad we realize that countries needs is more important than our will or our personal feelings so we decided to forget the past and concentrate on developing the country that is more important than our corals so i'm dr mahathir mohamad thank you very much for talking probably. the stories generate thousands of headlines these protests are saying down with the system and down with all of the parts with different angles from different

perspectives just because we came to prison doesn't mean the right stuff that the gate separate the spin from the facts the western media jumps on stories without taking down the misinformation from the journalism it's about telling the stories of those human beings on the ground with the listening post on al-jazeera. there is grown in a very short time to be a trusted news source wherever you are in the world he really want to know what's going on there and you find out very quickly we know look even use some nations prison. we are probably international everybody will learn something watching our coverage. be showing that we can be the best international news and most trusted source of stories that people actually can't find elsewhere and that's going to continue. on as the last time you were out on the streets protesting whether on line you feel the weight of the system when you walk through each and every love

billboard layer further and further into the jail or if you join a sunset retention has to start from day one whether again you're in detention or you're incarcerated this is a dialogue everyone has a voice so far there are studies that support the rush coverage will be varying accounts but i want to give people the reasons for it join the colobus conversation amount is iraq. centuries it was the remote this of brazil's indigenous communities that protected them from the rapacious outside world now it's what shields those who are encroaching on protected indigenous territory starting fires and threatening the residents of the county poor that had their 1st contact with the outside world in 1978 and what are you. talking her native language translated for us into portuguese remembers it well. she says they brought diseases that decimated her community but that playing in we had a lot of land and we lived peacefully now we live with fear that are very few

firsts the invaders are coming closer it's difficult for us to gauge why a place so remote so tranquil should not so so much to the rest of the walls the indigenous people who live here will realize this but now as the smoke fills the skies and the ashes pollute the river the rest of the world is beginning to realize it too.