africa, where people have been facing record levels of drought. it's a real challenge for daily life. in south korea, work is the top priority for many young g peop. so how are they supposed to find a partner? and in iraq, people have suffered hugely at the hands of the i.s. terror group. but there's no question of giving up. three years ago, large areas of iraq were taken over by islamic

state extremists, including three key cities -- mosul, tikrit and ramadi. after extensive fighting, the iraqi army and coalition forces managed to drive the islamists out. in december last year, iraq declared the i.s.-occupied parts of the country officially freed. araround 70,000 homes were destroyed during the occupation and subsequent fighting. 5 million n displaced pepeople e still in camps and other temporary housing. at a global donor conference in februaryry, participating stats reed t to edge $ $30illion towards rebuilding iraq. but experts warn that's just a third of what's really needed. meanwhile, l life is startrtino return to the demolished cities. slowly, but suly. reporter: when ali rides his bike through western mosul, it's a trip through a dark and painful past. the wasteland reminds the 36-year-old of the worst trauma he has ever experienced -- living under i.s. rule.

centuries-old buildings, palaces, churches, and the world famous al-nuri mosque, now lie in ruins. with his camera, the university lecturer wants to document the destruction and rebirth of his hometown. ali: at first instance, i couldn't recognize it. this is, b by the way,y, the ant part of mosul, is the busiest ever. and now, it's a ghost town. it's a risky place. it's hazardous. and it's empty. the soul of the place is no longer here. rereporter: ali is rediscoverig his s city by bike, followingg three years of war and terror. every bit of fresh paint he sees gives him hope. and color is indeed coming back to mosul. the black flags of i.s., the murderous propaganda on the bridges and walls, are all history. now, street artists are covering

it up with declarations of love to their city, in spite of everything that has happened. hassan: : i love my city, it hs great charisma. we are now giving back to it what it has given to us. we went to school here, to university. and now, the city needs us. reporter: these types of positive messages are whwhat ai wants to send out to the world with his photographs. the era of hate and fear is over, for once and for all. mosul lives again. ali: da'esh murals used to attract young people to join them, attract people to kill, to purge the city of the minorities, to impose their point-of-view, their dark point-of-view. so, it is very important to paint that dark era with

beautiful colors, yeah. reporter: but the wounds of the past are still far from being healed. ali also feels a deep sense of mistrust, wondering who may have sympathized or collaborated with i.s. he makes a statement on social media with his photos and his blog. he believes that mosul is bebetr than its image. ali: mosul is not isis. mosul has always been living in a co-existential way. i have christian, kurds, kurdish students. i have yezidi students. and nobody thought to put a finger on a hair of them. what happened was something exceptional, was something brutal. and it was something that happened by the tiniest portion of muslims, of iraqis. reporter: photos from that dark era. ali took them secretly, and in doing so, he risked his life.

the university, abandoned. most departments were closed. ali also lost his job as a lecturer. his father, who had always shaved, was forced by i.s. to grow a beard. the book forum cafe. it's a place that breathes freedom. a year ago, the building was still burnt out. now, schoolchildren, students, and artists meet here to do all the things that had been forbidden for years. to read, to play music, to smoke, to have fun. a few of ali's pictures also grace the walls. he's a regular customer, and a friend of the owner. fahed sabah invested all his savings into the cafe. during the i.s. period, he read countless books in secret.t. since then, he is convinced that every change begins with literature.

fahed: this place will succeed if the young people decideded o change our minds, toto change r -- t to deletete all thehe black panorama from our memories. reporter: there are some indications that they might succeed. music can once again be heard in the streets of mosul. for three years, hakam and muhammad hid their instruments from i.s. religious police. now, they play music once again, for themselves, and for others. scenes like this give ali hope for a better future for his beloved, long-suffering city. host: when war and terror dominate, human rights abuses are rarely far behind, which makes a mockery of the un's charter and declaration of human rights. this list of rights is long. from freedom from torture, to protection from imprisonment. but it's nowhere near as long as

the list of human rights offences in the world. myanmar's army, , for examplp, useses brute fororce against e natition's rohingya a minority. many obsbservers call itit geno. hundrereds of thousasands of rohingya h have fled too neighborining bangladeshsh in china, freedom of secech remamains little m more than a nominanal right. anyoyone daring toto criticize governrnment policy faces imprisonment, or worse. when human rights are under threat, those who fight for them are needed more than ever. reporter: september, 2014. it was a night of terror in iguala, mexico. armed men attacked several buses, killing six people and abducting 43 students who were on board. the case shocked mexico. and to this day, what happened to the young men remains a mystery. omar garcia was there. many of his friends were injured, killed, or disappeared.

omar: i can still remember how scared i was that ninight, and e terror. and the outrage at not knowing whatat happened. reporter: the official investigation has been bogged down in conflicting theories and misinformation. whether authorities are unwilling or unable to solve the case is not clear. there are plenty of suspects, but no convictions. that's why human rights organizations are scrutinizing the case independently. they've commissioned forensic architecture, a team of scientists, journalists, and artists, to evaluate and visualize public sources. like omar's witness s account, r example. the night's events are reconstructed on interactive maps. omar helped in the reconstruction. irving: where were you when they opened fire? omar: i raran that way. reporter: it's a complex case.

the e military, police units, s well as criminal gangs, are all likely involved. irving: the reconstruction is meant to allow us to visualize the crime scenes, to understand the extent of the violence and how it was coordinated. it's hard to understand that if you've just got a file with 500 or 600 pages. repoporter: the scene of the cre in 3d. the reconstructionimims to sw what h happened whenen, basedn geodata, photos, and videos. there is an exhibition, but the information is online as well. amnesty international is one organization using digital investigations more and more to protect human rights. for the past year, it's bebeen teaching students, like these here in britain, how to scrutinize pictures and videos from social media. olivia iannelli is one of the

first members of the digital verification corps. olivia: so it's given back the power to the citizens on the ground and it's kind of now a meanans of defense. so many people can now turn to their mobile phones, start recording, and gather evidence. reporter: the goal is to verify this evidence, where and when it was recorded. the digital detectives look at all sorts of information, like the weather and position of the sun. these pictures from the internet could verify or debunk a story. olivia: digital images can actutually give us evidencnceo hold states to account, so we can hold these people to account just through a youtube video. reporter: like this video, for examplple, of an a alleged lin war r criminal. it's with ththe help of such recordings that the international criminal court in the hague has issued an arrest warrant against the man. the coururt uses technology to investigate remotely.

madeleine: it's a great opportunity for us, because suddenly there's this wealth of information out there. not all of it's going to be relevant, but there's this information that we suddenly can have access to in a pretty efficient manner, possibly from a spot that we can't access. reporter: the internrnional criminal court now even has its own cyber-investigators. they examine data, check for manipulation, or proof of authenticity. but the digital evidence is never the sole source of evidence. madeleine: but we're also sort of then going off and looking for other r sources to corrobore the information that conontained in a v video or a photograph, o that could be witnesses again, it could be documentation, so there's a number of different other sources that we're looking at. reporter: using technology to document war crimes and human rights violations is particularly useful when public authorities fail.

in the casase of the mexexican stududents who werere kidnappede government agency destroyed rerdinings oa cctvtv cera. the forensic architecture team digitally reconstructed the footage to show what was ignored by the official probe. irirving: our project cannotot answer the main n question of where the students are, but it can trigger further inspections. reporter: that's certainly what omar is hoping for. that night in iguala sti haunts him. omar: even if we get justice one day, this will continue to shape our lives. this terrible crime scarred us. we are fighting to make sure this never happens again. reporter: forensic architecture is a way to remember, and maybe to even help find the truth.

host: around the world, new technologies have become almost essential in many areas of our lives. even the search for a partner has become a digital affair. in 2015, more than one in four young adults in the u.s. used an online dating platform. and last year inin asia, 133 millioion people usesed intert dating services. does that mean that the good old-fashioned way of meeting people without the internet is now tototally out? t whwhen it comes to south korea. there, blind dates organized by friends are in great demand. this is dating analogue-style. report: young-g- is used to being the ntnter of tentntion. as a a model, she e regularly s araround the wororld, earning d momoney. very gogood, in fact.t. her r parents are e proud of . exexcept for onene thing -- ss still single. titime for blilind de.

cheon-yong: so who's t d date with? young-juju: i have no o idea whm meeting.g. reporterer: and here h he i. seung-woo.o. his gregarious best friendasas arrarangedhe datate. seung-woo o is more reseserved. he has twowo jobs, and l like y south koreans of hisgege, earn high s salar he bararely has timeme for anyg ououtside work, , but he'd stl like to be in a relationipip. blind d dates are stanandard procedure in south korea iendnds arnge ththemor theirir friends. it's old-fasashioned stufff. not online, no algorithms dedecidingikelely matches. just friendsds of friends s of friendnds. jae-hyung: blind datesre n not alalwaysuccessssfu t the e re you do them, e morereikely th they'llork ou th're juju anothth part of o

quicresultltsociety. reporter: young-ju eeded her st relationsnship because e hr boyfririend wanted t to marry . she wasnsn't ready. settling down, having a fami -- shehe's n therere y, and hee parents are worried. lilike manyounung soh korerean, young-ju stitill lives at t h. so there's's plenty of p press. young-ju: my paren talalk about getting married all l thtime. "when are you getting married," theysksk. i'm 28. two ofof my friends s have just mamarried. so i'i'm supposed . bubut i don't want to yet. rertrter: hehairirdresr is single, , too, and alslso livesh his s pares. he's 38 and often goes on bldd datetes. cheon-yong: in south korea, bld dadates ke cononneions. because everyo is s alys working, trere's ntime t tmeet anyonene. soso they go on n bld dates to chececk out a potetential relationshship. ththey hope they'll be able to make a quick decioion and ve themselves the prelinanaries babacally beususe thdate c ces

commenend by a friend. repoport: in south koreapeopople say once you're overer 30, youe over thehe hill. espececially w. for memen, it's morere like 40. but ththat only applplies to l. a man's career has to be in fu ing g by 3 otherwise e something's s ami. south korerea has one ofof the world's highest percengege of sing peoplple d one ofofhe lolowest birth r rates. but now itit's time to t take e out for r a blind datete. in keeping with traditio e-hyhyung troducuceshe two.. and beining the matchmhmaker,e hands ouout complimentnts, sag how beauful l shlooks and how smarhe i is. and then he'e's off, and t thee on tir o own, th onlnly eir nerves to kekeep them compmpa. young-ju: this is my fst-everr blind date. i dodon't kn whahat i'm supposd to do.

reporter: through all the giggling and t pregnant paususes, there'dedefinite a a sparark, too. they're attracted to each otheh, both like a sense a humor, and a nice s smile. and then t they talk abobout bd groups. like star signs in the west, in sosouth korea, a person's blbd grououp is tughtht to veal a a t ababout their character. yog-juju: what is yoyour blood group? seueu-woo: i'm type a. young-jurereally? seung-woo: so do you belve i in blood grou? ? younju: susu. seung-woo:o, what's your bod group? youngngu: i'm typb. seg-wowoo:o you like type yog-ju: : do like type a gs. ung-woo:eally? that's aelief. they s type a'are shy. poporterit's a aromising start. and there's pepe thesewo m may be one stetep further totowards finding ththe one, and e escag from all the presse e of bng single host: and now it's time for global ideas.

this week, we head to south africa, a nation that's been suffering one of the worst droughts in its history.y. 2017 was the driest year on record for the area around cape town. what can people do to cope under such merciless conditionons? reporter: this reservoir supplies cape town with most of its water. but after four years of drought, there's very little of it left. the theewaterskloof dam is only 10% full. ththese trees were once e fully submerged. louise stafford is director of water funds at nature conservancy south africa. as a local, she's acutely aware of the water shortage in the region. louise: normally where we stand would be water. and these are desperate times, and it's a result of climate change, population growth, and it's a reality that we will see

in africa and in south africa more and more. and the big question is, when you look at this, you think how is this possible, and will it ever rain again, and if it rains, will it ever fill up this dam again? reporter: even the water withdrawal points have been left high and dry. they need to be filled with the help of pumps. otherwise, the pipes would remain empty. cape town is around 100 kilometers south of the reservoir. water scarcity is a fact of life for the city's four million residents. restrictions on water consumption have been in place for months. residents are limited to 50 liters of water per person per day. in the inner city, many people get their supply from natural sources of water. but hundreds of thousands of people also live on the outskirts of the city. gailine johannes isn't well-off, and has always been economical

about water consumption. there's no swimming pool in the yard and just one tap in the kitchen. her family takes care not to waste a drop of water. gailine: the people here in our house, they are very precisely because of the water that is being wasted. like children playing with the water, throwing everyone wet in the street. and i also learn my child to never waste water because of the water restriction that is here very highly. reporter: but thanks to the water shortage, gailine has found a job. a water conservation project was recently set up close to her home. she and a few other local women now go to work every morning. johneline: it's a good opportunity y r us.

there is high unemployment in the commmmunity and this is an opportunity for us to generate an income for our families. reporter: the women clear shrubs from this huge wasteland. rainwater and treated domestic wastewater seep into the atlantis aquifer. after filtering through the sand for three years, the groundwater is returned to the city's water supply system. but there's a problem -- non-native plants, like invasive australian acacias. louise: if you look at the structure of the plant, it's much bigger than the local feinbos and the root structures, or the root systems are quite big in relation with the plant, so lots of waterer gets suckedp through the roots and evaporation takes place through the leaves. and the other way that we're losing water is, when it rains

and the plants are this densely packed together, the water doesn't reach the aquifer floor and it doesn't replenish the aquifer. reporter: experts say that in the cape region alone, invasive plants consume around 38 billion liters of water a year, enough to supply cape town for two whole months. gailine: we have to cut a lot. the lowest to the ground. we have to make it a little bit, so that you can see. so that's why we use this poison so that it won't grow again. reporter: weedkiller destroys the invasive plants and stops them from spreading and consuming valuable groundwater. it will take 30 years to kill off the acacias for good. the project is financed by the water fund for cape town. louise stafford hopes it hasn't come too late. and all the hard work is pointless if it doesn't rain. louise: we need to change our

relationship with water. we need to change the way we see these water supply areas and then we need to change the way that we work with nature. and we need to do everything possible to work with nature to make nature more resistant, resiststant in these circumstances. otherwise, we're facing a total collapse. host: from south africa to west africa. what do people eat in ivory coast? we take a look. reporter: ababidjan is thehe commmmercial capitital of ivoryy coast, a city of 4.5 milli oplele. on the fringe of marcory marart isis the snack s stall that po monatitine runs togegether witr fafamily. someone's always hungry, so it's open from 6:00 in ththe mornig till 10:00 in the evening. the kbine bleu's been in business for 28 years -- a local

legend. paco, who isis 22, runs ththe k bar togetherer with her momothed other female relatives. pacoco: i like it t here a lot.. iteedsds ouramily,y, a my mamama also worksks here. i i like it a lolot. it's hard, but work is work. and woululdn'tive itit ufor anytything else. reporter: the plantainins are t up andnd then fried d inunflowr oil for eight to ten minut,, untitil th're ninicend greasas

they're eaten mostly with meat or fish.h. almomost everyone e can affort hehere. childrdren love to e eat the as frfrom the stallll without anyny trimmings. alococos remind everyone here f ho c cooking. when i've got time, i rmrmally iake e themyself.f. i i don't come f from around h, but when i'm'm in town, meme ay daughthter come by.. >> i love e it. it's my fafavorite meal.l. it's's sweet. i don't avave the ighthtest t. reporter: a a portion coststse equivalentnt of 45 eurococents.

see you nextxt time, and till then, take care. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute,

narrator: on this episode of "earth focus," climate change is forcing people to migrate in search of food and shelter, altering traditional lifestyles across the globe. in tijuana, mexico, haitians fleeing devastation are building a neighborhood as their dreams of entering the united states dwindle. while in mongolia, the traditional herding lifestyle is threatened as drought forces a new generation to the capital in search of opportunities.