host: this week, "global 3000" goes to china, where consumerism dominates, though not entirely. we meet a little monk changing people's perspectives. in senegal, fishing areas are being plundered by international fleets, and the locals are losing out. but first, we head to yemen. after almost two years of war, the suffering goes on. many people here are on the run, fleeing violence. those who can afford it go abroad. corruption is widespread. there are barely any public services in yemen, and only a shell of a legal system. as a result, the country is in a very bad state.

for 12 years, the ngo fund for peace has been publishing an index of fragility around the world. while many countries are politically and economically stable, others like mozambique or south africa are more fragile. the situation is particularly bad in syria, somalia, and yemen. reporter: wind whistles through the gaping hole in ali's parents' home. the saudi missile attack that caused the damage also killed his father. ali now lives with his uncle. he hopes to get his house repaired at some point when peace has returned and people no longer live in fear of foreign bombs. >> the situation in yemen is very bad.

this war has to stop. reporter: the saudi attacks have left their mark not only on the buildings. at the marketplace, traders have a lot of time to chew khat leaves, the local stimulant. there's hardly anyone here with money to spend. after 20 months of war, yemen is in ruins, and it's civilians who suffer the most. many districts no longer have access to electricity or water, so every day, residents come to the mosque to collect fresh drinking water. >> we want the world to understand what is happening here. we want it to help yemen. life here is very tough. we yeminis are peaceful people. we want peace. the world needs to understand that. reporter: yemen is the battleground of a proxy war

between saudi arabia and iran. local militias are also wrangling for power and influence, but there are no winners here. the country's economy is at rock bottom. the health system is on its knees. this boy is four years old. for months, he suffered diarrhea, vomiting, and starvation. more than three million yemeni children and pregnant women are desperately malnourished. saudi arabia controls yemen's borders. nothing can enter without its approval, not even food, medicine, or fuel. >> this boy is very weak. he has lost all his hair due to severe malnutrition. his family has no money. they can't afford medicines or food. poor people here suffer terribly as a result of saudi arabia's blockades.

reporter: yemen is no stranger to hunger. it's the poorest of the arab countries, but the war has made the situation much worse. officials haven't been paid for months, and there are hardly any other jobs. there's no such thing as free medical care. patients have to pay for everything themselves, including medicine and food. it's unclear what will happen to this boy if his family can't afford further treatment. >> sometimes we can afford medicine, sometimes we can't. he needs x-rays and other tests, but we don't have the money for them. we'll probably leave the hospital soon. reporter: the world food

programme is helping as much as it can, but even that's not enough. young children are still suffering extreme under-development as a result of malnutrition. >> these children that are affected, they will have it for life. if their brain is damaged when they're under 2 or 3 years, they'll never recover, and that's, i think, one of the biggest tragedies that we are seeing in this situation. reporter: outside a school, men and women wait in long, separate lines for the iron gates to open. then everyone rushes inside. this is where the world food program hands out tokens for basic rations. mona mohammed and her children are among the seven million people in yemen who receive the ration tokens. in reality, far more people need help, but even the un's coffers are bare. only those who would otherwise starve are granted this support.

>> we only have these tokens. my husband has no work, so these are all we have. reporter: mona's apartment was destroyed by a saudi bombardment on the capital sanaa. now she lives with a relative, her sick husband, and 13 children in a small, dark shelter. >> if only the war would stop. our children don't have a home. they can't go to school. there's no work, no money. reporter: but they do have the food tokens, so they can buy flour and other provisions. today, at least, this family will have something to eat. host: over the next few years, the populations of many middle eastern countries are expected to boom, particularly in turkey and iraq, and unemployment is

already a problem everywhere. jobs for the young are especially scarce. an entrepreneur is helping young people become self-employed. reporter: "the arab world is sitting on a powder keg," says khadija hamouchi. a third of young people in the region are out of work, a figure that's set to rise. having travelled widely in egypt and beyond, she's spoken to many of them. >> by 2020, over 100 million young people are going to enter in the job market. over 100 million young people. that's a huge freaking number. reporter: khadija hamouchi's parents are from morocco. she was born in belgium and has lived in london and berlin. at the moment, she's in san francisco, where she's working in a start-up incubator. her aim is to produce an app that provides information in

arabic on how to set up a business, helping to kickstart fledgling enterprises in the region. she believes there's a gap in the market for business knowledge of this kind. >> when you speak about education of young people, people say, "oh, is it a programme to deradicalize youth?" there is that still strong prejudical assumption that people think everyone, because they are arabs, muslims, are at risk of becoming terrorists. as if 375 million young people were ready to be radicalized simply because they are arabs. reporter: khadija hamouchi is lucky. she's had the chance to visit start-up workshops, make contacts, and try things out. many young people in the arab world don't have that privilege. those who do go to university, often seek secure jobs as civil

servants or in big corporations. few dare to go it alone. she's financing her venture with crowdfunding as well as her own savings. >> entrepreneurship is a very, very lonely pathway, definitely. solititude, sometimes also stability. the fact that i move from place to place to be able to carry out that project is great because people see the commitment, but sometimes i just wished i could give the same address to people to post letters to. reporter: the 26-year-old gave up her job as a teacher in london to follow her dream, but there's little time to enjoy san francisco. she is working 12 to 16-hour

days. her meeting with her software developer in dubai isn't scheduled until 10:00 at night. the uae is 12 hours ahead. as well as programming the app's prototype, dayana abboud also gives khadijah advice. >> the youth, they don't know how to find this content. there is not a lot of content they find online. they also need some kind of guidance, and when they find other people or a platform that brings all these communities that want to learn together, so they kind of connect together and they will empower each other. reporter: the arab spring showed just how quickly young people were able to mobilize via the internet. >> they know what they want. they know they want something different. they know they want a better

quality education system, a better healthcare system. they know what they deserve, and they are going to ask for it. reporter: to help herself keep going, she thinks of the words of her favourite poet. >> "start walking towards the sun, your legs will get heavy and tired. then comes a moment of feeling the wings with you've grown, lifting." rumi, an arab poet. an arab sufi poet. reporter: khadija hamouchi is already planning her next trip. she wants to tour nine arab countries, testing whether her app really works for young people there. host: there's less work for fishermen in senegal, too. large factory ship are trawling west africa's coastal waters, leaving fewer fish for the locals that depend

on them. the eu and russia aren't far behind, and the fleets don't always stick to licenced limits, either. it's estimated over a third of the catch pulled in by foreign ships is illegal. reporter: early morning in kayar, a fishing village in senegal. many fishermen aren't heading out to sea today. conditions are too stormy. but mor and his team are not letting the bad weather stop them. they never do. no matter what the atlantic looks like, they go. every day is a struggle for survival. people here have been fishing the same way for generations, but, unlike their forefathers, mor and others can hardly live off their ever-smaller catch.

>> we never used to to have to go far out to fish. our fathers would catch big fish close to the coast, and far more than we do now. but our population is growing, and there are more and more fishermen. there are more foreign boats now, too. reporter: west africa's waters are, in fact, teeming with fish, but the seemingly inexhaustible stocks are now running dry close to the coast. that's largely due to foreign vessels offshore from places like china, russia, and the eu. senegal and other west african countries have handed out generous fishing licenses to these nations. however, more and more foreign ships are fishing far more than their quota. in essence, illegally. it's easy to see how mor and other local fishermen just can't compete. >> they can catch as many fish

in one day as 300 of our boats catch in a month. we go out every day, but it's not enough what else can we do? there's no other work here. reporter: it is this lack of economic prospects that has sent thousands of senegal fishermen europe-bound. mor was one of them. his crossing took nine days. he nearly drowned. finally, he reached the spanish coast, only to be sent home 36 days later. he says he won't try again. his friends, on the other hand, all want to leave. but senegal is a peaceful, democratic country, so why do so many of its people dream of fleeing to europe? for young people, senegal has little to offer. future prospects here are scarce, and europe is partly to blame for that, says mor. he and some fellow fishermen have formed an action group.

it's headed up by abdullahi ndiayi. they want european politicians to know that there's an obvious link between migration and european policies. >> if the eu says it is giving us development aid, it shouldn't destroy our industries at the same time. if it wants to help us, it should open its markets to us. give us the equipment we need to catch and process our own tuna so that we can make the most of our own resources. reporter: and yet, instead, it's the mega-trawlers that plunder these resources, taking more than they're legally allowed. that's according to new studies by environmental groups ejf and the overseas development institute. they spent a year watching the way the big trawlers operate, and found that many fleets were taking twice as much fish as they are supposed to. to hide this, they freeze the

extra fish out at sea and then transfer it to container vessels that carry it away before it can be checked. ishbel matheson is one of the study's authors. west africa loses around 1.2 billion euros each year through illegal fishing. for developing countries like senegal, it's an economic disaster. >> we estimate that up to 300,000 jobs up and down the coast could be created if money was invested in the fishing and processing industry across western africa. it would create jobs, it would create wealth for families, it would create prosperity and dignity for those people, and it would ensure that they stay in their communities and don't have to travel overseas in order to find jobs. reporter: senegal's government, however, has so far only made half-hearted attempts to stop illegal fishing. it does patrol the waters, for

example, but on a small, low-tech scale. it's a true david and goliath struggle. the foreign boats obviously don't want to be boarded and checked, so they simply sail off. >> we need more boats, better ones, and better monitoring equipment, and training, so that we're a match for the foreign ships. that we have the same spec as european vessels, for example. reporter: better methods, training, and technology to finally stop illegal fishing. is that what they really want? like many african countries, senegal is rich in resources, but its own government is selling them off and allowing foreign companies to exploit them. a small elite has become richer while the wider population remains poor. in fact, for most people here, life is just getting harder. less fish also means that market prices are higher. local people are not only losing

jobs, they can no longer afford this important source of daily nutrition. there's a sense that life here is hopeless, and so it's hardly surprising that so many dream of europe. mor, though, tries hard to convince his friends to stay. europe, he believes, is not worth risking your life for. >> but our lives aren't worth anything here. we don't earn any money. >> we don't think about those who have drowned. we concentrate on the ones who have made it, those who send money home and support their families here. reporter: if they had the money to pay the traffickers, they would leave tomorrow. if nothing changes and the world continues to rob them of their livelihoods, the dream of a better life in europe will be something people here simply pass on to their children.

host: religion was banned in mao's china. that only changed after the communist leader died. since then, the number of chinese who profess a faith has risen. around 2% of chinese are muslim, and over 5% say they are members of the christian church. but the biggest group of believers are buddhist, around 18% of the population. reporter: an hour's drive away from the hectic urban ambience of beijing, a 1,000-year-old temple in the mountains is being restored. in the early 1970s, during china's cultural revolution, buddhist monks at the longschuen temple were persecuted and killed, and for decades afterward, the structure was in ruins. but something of their spirit has survived, and for the last

ten years, what's known as the dragon spring temple has undergone a remarkable renovation. today, it's a tourist attraction. just 60 kilometers northwest of the chinese capital, it's like another world. the restoration has proceeded with great attention to detail from the original design. now, monks are here, too. over 150 of them live at the monastery, studying ancient texts with hopes of reviving buddhism in china, and some are doing it in a unique style. xian fan studied art in beijing before coming here. once he arrived, he had an unusual idea to create a cartoon monk as a kind of branding for longshuen temple. this is xian er, all in yellow. >> i made him in sort of

square-shaped because people really like that. so i'm blending old tradition with what's really trendy right now. reporter: xian er is a hit, and xian fan, his creator, has built a small cartoon empire in the heart of the monastery. art students travel here from beijing as volunteers to help advance xian er's adventures in comic strips. now, he even appears in even stop-action videos. xian fan helps out with the production sometimes. but now there's an even bigger hit. the latest incarnation of the small yellow monk is a robot. ironically enough, he verbally advocates silence, and he doesn't seem to be any nuisance to his illustrious predecessor. but he can get a bit cheeky if people pester him with too many

irrelevant questions. >> how's the weather today? >> can't you look out the window and see for yourself? >> why are you so fat? >> no comment. >> what's your favorite food? >> silly question. robots don't eat. >> sometimes he gets annoyed when people ask too many dumb questions. then he holds back. but normally he functions quite well. reporter: so well, in fact, that every weekend, longshuen temple gets up to 2,000 visitors from all over china. some are tourists who come mostly to see xian er, but a growing number are here for a different reason, something deeper. the mix of technology and religion, even for the higher-ups in the monastery, is no longer a contradiction in china. since the government has once again sanctioned monastery life, the monks are trying everything

to reach out to ordinary chinese, who they think need them now more than ever. >> the economy has grown really fast, so people are a lot better off, materially speaking. but they're also aware that they're under a lot more pressure nowadays. reporter: xian er, or rather, his programmers, have to keep a cautious balance because the monks aren't entirely free to do what they want. the monastery's executive committee includes a member of the beijing government, as is the case in all buddhist monasteries in china. authorities want to keep an eye on what goes on here. >> and yet, the government also knows that people aren't really that happy. that's why it's letting us do what we do and even supports us in this way, and that's very important to us.

reporter: it's a bit like letting some of the steam out of a pressure cooker, as long as that, too, is regulated. at present, weekend activities mostly consist of leading thousands of chinese visitors in meditation and chanting mantras. >> ever since the first time i came here, my soul has been deeply moved. the wisdom of the monks is like a vast sea, and i want to learn much more. reporter: xian fan, who spearheaded the project, doesn't get to hear such comments very often, but he's glad the temple is attracting so many people these days. >> it's changing people's hearts and their way of thinking. things they were afraid of no longer seem so insurmountable. i feel a clarity here, and much more secure. reporter: no worries, then,

about passing the torch to the next generation. xian er will go have a second series, too. buddhism in china is making a comeback, but it's hard not to wonder if robot monks might replace the real ones someday. xian fan isn't ruffled by the question. he says, "i'm still here." host: and that's all from us. we're back next week with a new edition of "global 3000." you can watch the programme online anytime. and we love hearing from you. write to us at global3000@dw.com, and follow us on facebook, dwglobalsociety. bye for now. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.

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