for a family of 4 here at lake michigan, the water is lead free. it picks up the lead as it courses through the cities, aging pipes. there's water everywhere. it's just not safe to drink. so far, the city has promises of $18000000.00 of the $28000000.00 it will take to replace all of its lead supply pipes. it will have to find the remaining $10000000.00 somewhere to finish the project on time. in 2023. john henderson, al jazeera, bent in harbor michigan. ah, this is out there. are these all the top stories and alms group in afghanistan linked iso says it's behind a bomb attack. the largest share mosque in the sunset were counter. ha, he's 48. people have been killed and dozens more wounded. the pentagon has often compensation to the families of victims of a drones strike in kabul, 10 afghan civilians including 7 children,

were killed during the final days before the u. s. troop withdrawal pants and is called the strike a mistake and says it will work to ed's relocating his surviving family members to the us. my cana has moved from washington dc. why this is complicated is that normally these discussions are held by regional commanders on the ground. they all know us troops in afghanistan anymore. so this is not being dealt with at a distance by the under secretary of state for defense, for the policy department. so he's talking to the c o n g o that employs the killed man. he will be talking to lawyers as well as it goes down the line. but further complicating this is that to the secretary of defense, lloyd austin, has guaranteed that the men surviving family will be repaired created to the united states or brought into the united states as is their wish. now this is a method that is dealt with by the state department, so you've got another government organization that is going to need to get involved

in this whole event. 7 activists in hong kong have been sentenced to between 6 and 12 months in prison for their roles. and last year's pro democracy protests happen, the keys of organizing and inciting others to take part in the unauthorized assembly. and the 3 people are dead off the magnitude for point 8 s y could be information island of bali, the quake target number landslides, damaging homes. crowds have taken to the streets in the us territory of puerto rico because the power grid keeps failing. they say the private companies which took control of the on an electrical grid in june should have control to someone else. i was angry about a lack of maintenance and repairs by the power authority. british police say the fatal stopping of u. k. politician, david amos is a terrorist incident. the 69 year old was meeting members of the public at a church in his constituency when he was attacked. those all headlines. the news continues here to democracy may be the world is

warming, and green lens ice sheet is melting, which is changing everything from sea levels to the way people live. and now even exposing the remnants of a cold war, paused greenland the melting of the frozen north on al jazeera. ah if i am on just a moment,

a little fearless along with a ship bag to la bella, the left with a young man. and may say, pay me and i'll make it. i'm an income man on luck. the 1000000 mark to rush a hole. i found my nail headed off one. no my i look, i'm not a middle lead bus with a number in a low you say who didn't molly? him right away beside the cash shift on buffalo. that the sugar glennhead blue. that's not enough. he shannon

mafia whatsoever. and what do i say? must allay had done a little bit of matrimony a don't mean muscle latin don't ellen shop but don't know what her comment and miss rema know? ah buffy. leslie miller petty bell told me how to rule. i so have no way, god dammit, my feet, i had mclee rashonna. ah man, nice ally made dominant. none that to check with

lebanon was one of the 1st countries in the region to have a democracy. oh, on victors, we are a democracy. but in vin life, it's not that me. democracy has certainly been hijacked. it's a resemblance of a democracy. we live on corruption everywhere. now we have one of the oldest democracy in that a book, but the democracy is not functioning well because it's not responding to the benefits of the citizen. oh, we are in an era when a lot of people are angry. ah,

there are 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 bowl for politicians who don't seem to have a lot of concern. is those democratic and street ah, 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 means a long standing tension. 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 back to lapse. oh, oh, how many of those democracy's not surprisingly were quite neat. 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 autocratic tendencies. these democracies have also proved to be much more vulnerable than me thought. ready ready ready ready a lot of people make arguments about democracy being for sale or 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 to sort of tragic example of that in the middle east, of course, is lebanon. ah, a ah. i was born in the war when peace came, we were hopeful that something good would come out of a mature, 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 collapsed. the political elite just decided to cut the piece of cake and shirt among each other me. when i was at close quarters, they taught us what the fed state would be. i can tell you that we're definitely on the last tracks of switching the felt state. lebanon was built as

a safe haven for all the persecuted minorities in the middle east. but the problem of the system with this country is that we couldn't build a system that answers the diverse society that we have in lebanon. it's about having a diverse society living in a unity system. and the system not answering the needs of the minorities in lebanon . if you asked someone or would you have a lead to your group from your own sack, it might be caught up or somebody from a different tech, but you don't anything about them to 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 better 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 democracies fail for many particular reasons. ah, they may be extremely corrupt and self serving with the lights that are not governing well and serving the public trust. new 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. ah,

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 and 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. if 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 to people who are fed up because the government to settle thinking of the forms, we're thinking of adding taxes. we want something new. this is finished

with go to downtown data square at 7 pm. it will only 3040 people. and the we stuff that, you know, getting messages and the 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 hussar and it 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 one of them. and they formed this my business, but it wasn't made of defendants. and the political last faith to gifts, to loose and then now nothing happened and nothing with . and we thought that we've reached had activity that's nothing with

. and then we discovered that hell has layers ah august, 4th explosion came and we lost houses, lost people and lust hope in the process of ever finding a solution to the problem that you are in the 3rd explosion and the world. apparently it comes after hiroshima and nagasaki in all of the sorts, hassles the city and killed more than $200.00 people. and because i think 5000000000 dollars in losses, so many people dead and so many chance if not hundreds of thousands homeless

as a result of bad governance because 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 has agreed to put not that it's joseph, and the board of bade woods and that just blew up. and no budget to now is has accountable for that. i will live in that much corruption, that even human lives is not worth it anymore to those people. it's not just that they failed us. it's that they are to me. oh,

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 ah, so it could be my name will be an associate will. so you can have that they can and they know what the most about hey they, alisa media media. why defeat on the sad lately colon from the ok, so have the muzzle title and seizures in this little little of our live, mr. the kid for the initial make

me the 2nd, you're entering an autonomy which you cannot see the nights at the end of it. i think i have reached the spot and everybody knew his anguish since uprising in october 29th, when bank to the open. and people went back to the bank. they had limits on their with their own 2nd talk was the currency started because they, we had a fixed rate for the denise pounds was $1.00. it was

$1571.00. it was $15000.00. 0, for today we live and 11 of inequality and poverty has never been seen in lebanon. so had a station price increase the receipt evaluation. this is the economy, the more inequality we have, the less democracy we, i know. ready 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 convert it 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. me. ready democracy does not succeed in the app. what? because we do not know how to deal with democracy. we have dictators. they're just people who just want to fill their pockets. who are service differ

power, who want to oppress in order to stay in their seats. the 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 themselves. and that was the ignition switch because it spoke to the sense of humiliation that arabs broadly felt by abusive, monopolistic, corrupt, already about

justice and dignity, respect for them as individuals which all of these era dictatorships and i see are bring. this is really quite upsetting to people who study democracy ah, the whole was, was that 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. ah,

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 battery 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's like it's typical night soda boom, that's what we're living and it's 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 you 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 becoming blower. no other dream is if you can eat more or you can have eaten model if he can fill out cards was guests. so this is how much the country became a grave for dreams, especially for the you know,

because you see a coma with dolly. let's see a simon and events that i, jim i believe is jimmy canup, is it jim? and he's sort of beat a bit different to paki anovia with . ready ready ready a letter back, a letter home. huh. but i'm not fun. oh my, you know my, it has been done with

take off a gander, media sensitive and the rise of their italian rule. you wake up one day, the system has been turned from an electoral lockers into a competitive authoritarian shade. a look at the lust for power in hungary to the experiences of those who live in every day. that is a pressure on us. but we have to be very careful, of course, and we have to be brave enough to support how democracy dies. democracy may be on al jazeera, examining the impact of today's headlines. let's move to cobra 19. terrible demonstration of the failure of humans, solid of it, setting the agenda for tomorrow's discussions. what i think what i saw, what i witness, i printed off season in bell and country international filmmakers, the world class journalist. let's take a deep dive into geez, common prosperity bring programs to inform and inspire you rec nickel solutions

that can make a difference about on al jazeera, talk to al jazeera, we ask what gives you hope that there is going to be peace? because the situation on the ground seems to be pointing otherwise we listen. we were never on the. 3 whatever road to off migration we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on al jazeera. hi marleen site and dough are here. top stories on al jazeera and alan's group in afghanistan linked to i so says it's behind a bomb attack on the largest shia mosque in the southern city of kandahar. these 48 people are said to have been killed and dozens more have been wounded. there was an attack last week on another mosque in the northern city of conduce stephanie decker reports. the.