al jazeera, amen jordan. now a hollywood star who inspired generations with the idea of exploring other planets is now heading to space star trek's william shatner's on board a blue origin spacecraft due to lift off in a few hours. the 90 year old to become the oldest person to go to space. he's traveling on a flight operated by amazon owner jeff bays us his company. it was scheduled to blast off on monday. it was delayed because of strong wind. ah, i thought picture of the headlines here on al jazeera, afghanistan's new taliban government is calling on the international community to end sanctions, which it says risk undermining, security. the acting foreign ministers meeting us and european envoys and cutoff pro iranian political parties and groups and iraq have denounced the election results as a scam. only figure show a coalition led by the influential shia cleric methodical sada one,

the most seats in parliament are 0 as ali hash. m, as in baghdad, and explains why some political parties are rejecting the results. they say that they're all around a 1000000 votes that were not counted under asking you for a re count at the same time. they say that these are other accusations that there were interferences in this election that are going to help the winners through to stay winning and for them to, to get out of the that the whole landscape. this is one, but there's another issue. these groups are also aiming to have a leverage in the a process of choosing the next prime minister and with such results, they won't have a big saying that schools and businesses and hong kong remain closed as heavy rain and winds from tropical storm compasses hit its financial hub, one person died and several are injured. the storms now heading towards china's high 9 island. kenny's president, who kenyata says he firmly rejects and will not recognize the ruling by the

international court of justice. the judgment, largely favor somali and a long running maritime border dispute at stake. his control of vast oil and gas deposits. chili's president has imposed a state of emergency in response to a recent conflict with the country's biggest indigenous group. are members of the ma poochie. i've been fighting to recover ancestral land. troops are being sent to southern regions. a coach now jira, sometimes the brother of late present abilities, but to seek out a 2 years in prison side. but a fleet was convicted of several charges including obstruction of justice and 2019, but a fleet was sentenced to 15 years in jail, a plotting against the state, but he was later acquitted. with those the headlines, the news continues here on al jazeera, the democracy may be democracy for so station, thanks a lot bye for enough talk to al jazeera, we are what gives you hope that it is going to be peace because the situation on

the ground seems to be pointing, otherwise we listen. we were never on the whatever road to off migration we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on al jazeera. ah if i'm on just a moment, a fair look alone with good medical line will ship back to la bella. the lafayette ha ha ha ha my luck with

feel young man and may say pay me. i know i may lay a me and have man on lock the 1000000 mark to rush my mind little. wow, it is possible. i hours my name had enough or no my a bus with somehow a number ah me and allow him helping him right away beside the ship. butler let the ship up until i had him for me. that's what came on. and what i mean like, i don't know. let me know what i

don't mean misaligned and don't. and then shop with her. and mr. murphy, murphy, murphy, i met him, had told me how to know when my feet had material hush and nibbling my alarm in them. and none of the number 11 on was one of the 1st countries in the region to have that market

on papers. we are democracy. but in life it's not that the demo christian has certainly been hired. so it's a resemblance of the market. we live on corruption everywhere. yeah. has one of the oldest democracy in the world, but the democracy is not functioning, was because it's not responding to the benefits of the citizen. ah, we are in an era when a lot of people are angry. ah, they're discontented with their leaders and governments for not being able to deal with economic challenges like growing in equality and declining social mobility. a lot of

people are willing to vote for politicians who don't seem to have a lot of concern for those democratic constraints. a willing when they come to power to ignore some of the limits on their power. ah, and making sure that that house is not a that remains a long standing tension. tomorrow. i have been studying the development of democracies and dictatorships for much of my professional life. ah, we're in a period of what some social sciences call democratic recession. now that has to be taken in context because what happened at the end of the 20th century is

we had an explosion of transition to democracy, an explosion of dictatorships, that collapse. oh wow. how many of those democracy is? not surprisingly, we're quite unique. but saddening. what's also happened is that democracies in places that we took for granted that we assumed were solid, that we assumed were no longer threatened by autocrat tendencies. these democracies have also proved to be much more vulnerable than we thought. ready ready ready a lot of people make arguments about democracy being for sale of being hijacked. it's very hard for me to understand how we can have something approximating political equality with the degree of social and economic inequality that we have. sort of tragic example of that in the middle east, of course is lebanon. ah

ah, with i was born in the war when peace came, we were hopeful that something good with come out of a tour occupied by foreign country by syria. ah, so before this occupation for a long time until 2005, when the occupation just left the country and this huge manifestation that took place on the 14th of march,

where we actually believed for once that this was our chance to create a country. ah, and then everything collapse mm. the political, it just decided to cut the piece of cake and shirts amongst each other me. when i was at close quarters, they taught us what the 1st state would be. i can tell you that we are definitely on the last tracks of switching the 5th state 7. it was built as a safe haven for all the prosecutor minorities in the middle east. but the problem with the system with this country is that we couldn't build a system that answers the diverse society that you have in lebanon. oh, it's about having an i versus the living in

a unique system. and the system not answering the needs of the minority 11. and if you ask someone, would you rather have a lead to your group from your own sex? it might be called up or somebody from a different tech, but you don't know anything about them. they'll choose this one. it's mainly about when you understand this and you understand the problem is that in the system, then you understand why these people are caught up. and when they come to office, they don't work for the data of the state and the citizens. they work for the better of the party and their group, me you have a society that historically been carved up in terms of power and

wealth by these different confessional leads from these different religious and social groupings. and it just becomes a kind of a lead cabal to extract the wealth of the society and serve the different, competing a lead interest, but not the collectivity, not the society as a whole. now, here in 2021. we are in the 15th consecutive year of democratic decline me i. ready democracies fail for many particular reasons.

they may be extremely corrupt and self serving with the lights that are not governing well in serving the public trust. people get disillusioned with the ruling elites and parties. ah, and when people see that the rulers they have elected are serving their own interests rather than the public interest. it's very alienating, it's very de molar moralizing. it's very infuriating people are supposed to be able to choose their politicians and those leaders and governments are supposed to come to power and put in place policies that help make people's lives better. that is what democracy is all about. ah,

what we've seen over the past several decades is governments that have been increasingly either unable or unwilling to do that. ah, so if we look at the trends of the last few decades, we can see some very troubling trends. growing levels of inequality. a sense that the future is going to be much less certain than we expected during the post war period. and in these kinds of contexts, people are rightly angry. ah, people become vulnerable to the appeal of populist, illiberal, or authoritarian leaders who say, i'm the answer. trust me and of course them when you trust in authoritarian populace, things get even worse here. ah,

another really critical political trend of the last decade is an unprecedented number of protests against existing governments. whether democratic or undemocratic is for corruption, for lack of responsiveness across the globe. and i think more and more lebanese are recognizing this are seeing verse and wanting a new social and political bargain in the country. oh, toby, 17 was a turning point in my life. that was the chance people were fed up because the government to said we're thinking of the forms, we're thinking of adding taxes. we want something new. this is finished with go to downtown, a little square at 7 pm. it will only 3040 people. and so we started, you know, getting messages and people started coming with

him. there will 40000 people for the 1st time, old confessions, or religious effects were on the street. those individuals just voicing did how soon and did anger against a disposal of the illusion. 11 was every one means everyone. everybody needs to be held accountable for every action that they have done in this political system. for the past 30 years, i had the 1st demand was for the government to resign and the government resigned. and then we asked for formation of a new cabinet of independence. people with will going to not come out of the streets until the government stepped out. and a new government is gonna home on the dell professionals. and they don't belong to

any sectarianism to any political association with any of the ones that we have currently with a form to describe it. but it wasn't made of defendant people and the political last phase 2 gifts with no, nothing happened and nothing with . and we saw that we've reached had activity, that's nothing with them. we discovered that has layers the

whole august, 4th explosion came and we lost houses. most people lost hope in the process of ever finding a solution to the problem that you are in the 3rd explosion and the where apparently it comes after hiroshima and nagasaki. you know, so it has a city and then $200.00 people and i think $5000000000.00 in losses. so many people, dad and so many tens, if not hundreds of thousands homeless as a result of bad governance because the governing really isn't happening. and the logic of rule in a country like lebanon isn't to govern. it's to divide up the wealth and power of the country. so it was a corrupt, political that had agreed to put my son,

joseph, and the board of bade work. and that just blew up and no budgeted. now it has accountable for that. i will live in that much corruption that even human lives. it's not worth it anymore to those people. it's not just that they feel us. it's that they are criminals who i have an n g all. so when the explosion took place, unfortunately, we had teams in place for construction because you had already done that because you have to know that in lebanon,

it's personal initiatives and civil society who does the work of what a state should be doing. because we do not have a state that help me so so he is coming from, i can be my name will be an associate will see, can have that. so i can and what about media media defeat on been said live ok. so have the muzzle title and seizures in this little a little have of i live mr. the kid for the initial they can actually oh i

the fact you're entering in a tunnel which cannot see the nights at the end of it. i think everybody never knew his anguish since uprising in october 2019th when the bank to the open and people went back to the bank. they had limits on their with their own 2nd talk was the gun and he started evaluate they, we had a fixed rate for the denise pounds was $1.00 equals $1571.00 . it was $15000.00. 0, for today we live and 11 of inequality and poverty has not been seen and lebanon.

so had a station price increase the receipt evaluation. this is the economy, the more inequality we have, the less democracy we have. i know nothing about equality of incomes. it says nothing about a quality of wealth, but it does say that everyone must be politically in. rather, the problem really is when social and economic inequality seats into the political sphere, there is no doubt that wealthy citizens have more influence over political outcomes than poor ones. those who are already very wealthy use their wealth to corrupt politicians. so when you have concentrated well, the temptation of the extremely wealthy is to use their economic power

to converted into political power through lobbying political controls so that they can then reproduce their, he cannot make concentration of wealth and you get into a vicious cycle. ah, democracy does not succeed in the ad words because we do not know how to deal with democracy. we have dictators there just people who just want to fill their pockets who are serious differ power, who want to oppress in order to stay in their seats. the i have spring was a hope for everyone. it started in tunisia,

this decision of this fruit vendor and tunisia has dignity had been repeatedly violated and humiliated by petty corruption by the police to emulate himself. and that was the ignition switch because he spoke to the sense of humiliation that arabs broadly felt by abusive, monopolistic, corrupt authority, about justice and dignity, respect for them as individuals which all of these arab dictatorships and i see are bring. this is really quite

upsetting to people who study democracy. the hope was that democratic wave had finally come to the part of the world that seem to be most immune to it. but of course, that democratic wave failed these uprisings failed because mainly of the regional dynamics that there were so few democracies in the region that there weren't others that could, could come to their aid. the anger at old dictatorships was massive, but the ability to build new democracies was not yet there governments can respond to the needs of their citizens. people's main think what we learned from lebanon is that democratic governments have some legitimacy simply by being democratic rights. but if those systems are corrupt and if they are

unresponsive, they will lose legitimacy as well. and democracy will not be able to thrive in those kinds of circumstances. ah, it's my last battle. this is the last time on gun fight. and if this does not happen, i don't want to see my children fighting the same backwards again over and over again. we knew the solution for me is for us deeper decide to realizing that this is tough, norman. wow, i'm sad, it was simple. go and i thought that what we're living in is not accepted. it's not okay to accept that our leaders just are corrupt,

kiddos, and a time. and this is the african crisis where and when we start questioning, it's when we start changing, as long as we're not questioning, we cannot change we still have some to make a change in the country, but every day o dreams are coming blower. now our dream is if we can eat model, if we can have eaten model, if we can fill out cards was guess so this is how much the country became a grave for dreams, especially for the you know, because the scene was sold boldly under colma with dolly, let's see a demo, but at

a salmon and a visit. i, jim, i believe the jimmy canup is that i, jim, i know he's sort of beatable to freight to paki on are we able to pick. ready ready joe from. ready a letter back later to home now, but i'm not my, you know, my son has been down for they propaganda media censorship and the rise of authoritarian rule wake up one day

this system has been turned from an electoral democracy into a competitive authoritarian shade. a look at the love for power in hungary, in the experiences of those who live it every day. there is a pressure on us, but we have to be very careful, of course, and we have to be brave enough to support that pressure. how democracy dies. democracy may be on al jazeera. we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world. so no matter where you call al jazeera will bring you the news and current affairs that matter. to you, al jazeera, on air or online, be part of the debate, or pacific people. the ocean is our identity and the source of well being. we are the ocean when no topic is off the table. it's a children's side atmosphere. people are demoralized, they're exhausted,

and many health care workers are experiencing p t s d like symptoms. jump into this dream and julie not global community of her on right on. you to right now, you can be part of those conversations wealth this dream. oh, now to sierra, ah, this is al jazeera, ah, hello, this is in use our on al jazeera. i'm fully back to life or my world headquarters in doha, coming up in the next 60 minutes. a warning about our warming planets, the international energy agency says trillions must be spent now on clean energy to limit climate change. taliban officials tell western envoys using sanctions to pressure them poses a threat to afghanistan. security oh.