This is an important week for wildlife conservation efforts across the globe. With Monday being World Lion Day and Wednesday marking World Elephant Day, both species have made recent headlines, since the death of “Cecil the Lion” in Zimbabwe and an increased focus on the international illegal ivory trade.

Cecil became an icon for the conservation movement when he was killed in Zimbabwe last month. American dentist Walter Palmer paid $50,000 to lure the beast from its sanctuary to its death. Social media brought the issue to the forefront, and now the Zimbabwean government is seeking Palmer’s extradition.

Big game hunting draws hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and thousands of Americans to various countries across Africa. According to the Program on African Protected Areas & Conservation, as of 2009 South Africa had made about $100 million per year from big game hunting safaris. It is followed by Namibia, Tanzania, Botswana, and Zimbabwe. But the group says although the figures may seem large, they only represent a small drop in those countries’ GDPs.

Some experts say, however, that if wildlife hunting is done correctly, it can actually preserve animals. They say when host countries set up the proper systems, revenue from hunters can be used to support and protect them.

Trophy hunting is not the only threat affecting large animals. Many of them face a loss of habitat when human development encroaches on their living space. But some critics also say that lions and other wild animals can often be threats to people, and controlling their numbers could even save human lives.

During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment “The Week Ahead,” Del Walters spoke to Jeff Corwin, a wildlife biologist, and to David Hayes, a former Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Interior.

“You may have a hunting license and purchased all the appropriate tags within the region that you’re hunting, but if you break any of those regional laws, for whatever reason, you’re considered a poacher,” says Corwin.

Hayes explains that “there’s a hunting tradition here in the United States that goes way back. I’m not an advocate for hunting, but there is a place for hunting and there’s a place where hunting should not occur.” He adds that the Department of Interior where he used to work found that elephant hunting in Zimbabwe and Tanzania were not being done responsibly, so the U.S. banned the entry of elephant trophies from both those countries.”

Since the killing of Cecil, Delta and other airlines have announced they will no longer transport animal trophies. The South African government responded with a statement saying, “The decision by Delta Airlines to enforce a blanket ban fails to distinguish between the trade in and transportation of legally acquired wildlife specimens, and the illegal exploitation and trade in wildlife specimens. It is a major source of South Africa's socio-economic activity, contributing towards job creation, community development and social upliftment.”

“I think the argument on the side of game hunting in Africa is that there’s an economic value attached to the aesthetic value of wildlife,” says Hayes. “And if that wildlife isn’t protected and conserved and available for hunting, then that revenue won’t come in to protect the other species under the umbrella of the right to hunt that creature within the environments where they live.”

Poaching is another concern gaining awareness. The United States used to be the center of the illegal ivory trade. John Calvelli of the Wildlife Conservation Society says, “In 1980 there were approximately 1.2 million elephants, and now there are less than 500,000. Every day 96 elephants are killed, that's one every 15 minutes.  That's 35,000 a year and at this rate the elephants will go extinct.”

“The level of poaching today is unprecedented,” says Corwin. “Poaching is why one out of every 12 African elephants has been illegally harvested and disappeared in the last few years. Poaching is also why a race of black rhino is now extinct and a sub-species of white rhino has only a few individuals left. We are at the battle lines, and right now we were losing the war.”

“When you have vibrant populations of animals, that there is a natural selection process that occurs, there’s a rhythm and a need sometimes for a culling and for hunting” says Hayes. “The issue is much more challenging, though, when you have species that are under tremendous stress, and that’s when the calculus gets much more complex.”

Corwin says we need to look at the bigger picture. “It’s very important that we need to take this energy and we need to be rational about it. We need to focus that energy in a real world situation to recognize the greatest challenges affecting wildlife. Certainly the challenges to human societies and to our own species plays a role in the management of all living life on our planet. Oftentimes when we see human beings in desperate situations, where human life is so cheap, it is often a reflection on an ecosystem that’s out of balance.

Thursday will be 70 years since the U.S. struck Hiroshima with an atomic bomb. Three days later, a second nuclear weapon was dropped on Nagasaki. World War Two ended a week later, when Japan surrendered.

Despite the decades that have passed, memories of atrocities and war crimes linger. Examples include the Rape of Nanjing and the use of South Korean women as sexual slaves for Japanese troops. And the use of atomic weapons at the end of the war continues to resonate today as the world tries to curb nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea.

These issues were the focus of Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment “The Week Ahead.”  
While some of the physical damage and scars have healed, emotions run high every year on the anniversary of the surrender. Japanese prime ministers traditionally mark the occasion with a speech, and anticipation of what current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will say in this year's address is creating tension between Japan, China and South Korea.  

“Aug. 15 will be a big day for the Japanese to think about their past,” says Sheila A. Smith, author of “Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics & a Rising China.” Abe has said he agrees with previous official Japanese statements of contrition over World War II — but he does not believe Japan should keep apologizing for events of the past.
“Japan's neighbors are kind of scrutinizing the public statement by Japan's Prime Minister,” says Smith.

The deep historical wounds are feeding into current tensions between Japan and China over disputed and increasingly militarized territories in the East and South China Sea. “Clearly,” Smith says, “the rise of China is being felt most keenly by Japan.”

The war ended after the atomic bombs were dropped but Japan had more than the bombs to worry about when it surrendered. 

“Although the bombings may have shortened the war, the Japanese already saw the handwriting on the wall." says Paul Carroll, a former official at the U.S. Department of Energy who is now program director at the Ploughshares Fund. "They were already decimated in terms of their military strength, and they were already looking at a Soviet Union, that rather than staying out of the war against them, was leaning towards joining it."

Since the end of World War II, the U.S. and Japan have reconciled their differences, and the two countries have moved on to cooperate on major issues, along with other countries in the region.

“I think that relationship comes out of World War II itself, and the post-war settlement happened during the Cold War,” says Zack Cooper, a fellow with the Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “There was the Soviet threat, and it made it necessary for the U.S. and Japan to work together to counter that threat. That’s why I think the United States looks back at the 70 years as being celebration of good history, rather than focusing on what happened in the 1930s and 1940s.”

Cooper adds that the U.S. has strong allies in Asia, including Japan and South Korea. “It’s critical for Washington to get Japan and South Korea to work together, because of a number of important challenges from North Korea to China.”

Activists in cities around the world rallied over the weekend to protest what they describe as Saudi Arabia’s systematic destruction of holy sites. The process has gone on for nearly a century, and, the protesters say, it has gained momentum in recent years, with the Saudi government moving to make dramatic — perhaps irreparable — changes to the face of Mecca and Medina, Islam’s two holiest cities.
About 700 people gathered in Washington, D.C., and marched toward the Saudi Embassy on Saturday. Similar protests were also held over the weekend in Los Angeles, Houston, New York, London, Karachi and Hyderabad in Pakistan and Melbourne, Australia.
The demonstrators called on the Saudi government to rebuild the Jannatul Baqee cemetery in Medina, a western Saudi city that is second only to Mecca in its importance for Muslims around the globe. The cemetery contains the graves of many members of the Prophet Muhammad’s family as well as some of his closest companions. The Saudi royal family demolished the shrines on top of the graves in 1925, saying that tombstones are un-Islamic, and replaced them with single unnamed stones.
Wahhabism, the Muslim sect whose tenets are official doctrine in Saudi Arabia, frowns on visits to shrines, tombs and religious historical sites, on the grounds this might lead to worshiping anyone other than God — Islam’s gravest sin. Many other Muslims, however, do not view offering prayers at sites like Jannatul Baqee as idolatry and believe the practices imposed by the kingdom’s rulers prevent them from paying proper respect at it and other holy sites.
“The Wahhabi sect of Islam stands to denounce the building of shrines on holy personalities, but the rest of the 71 sects [of Islam] want to go to these sites and pay respect to these personalities,” says Zaineb Hussain, a director at Al-Baqee, the group that organized the protests.
Al-Baqee is a Shia group based in Chicago that has been trying to bring attention to these issues since the 1990s. It started organizing protests each year on the eighth day of the 10th month of the Islamic calendar to mark the anniversary of the cemetery’s destruction. In 2007 it began busing people to the Saudi Embassy in Washington to demonstrate. The group says several sects are usually represented at the protests, including some non-Muslims.
The group says it submits a memorandum every year to Saudi officials. This year its letter called for the government to “immediately halt the destruction and desecration of shrines, graves, cemeteries [and] relics and in good faith begin the process of rebuilding these sacred sites to their original beauty.”
“We submit our memorandum to them every single year, and every year we do not get an official response from them, not even an acknowledgment that they received our memorandum,” says Hussain.
Al Jazeera was unable to reach Saudi officials for a response.
An unnamed nongovernment source says that the projects should not be seen as destruction but as expansions of existing holy sites — necessary to accommodate the growing number of pilgrims traveling to Saudi Arabia each year for hajj. (This year’s pilgrimage will take place during the second half of September.) When the Saud family took control of Mecca and Medina in the mid-1920s, crowds of about 50,000 were considered large for the annual pilgrimage. In 2012 more than 3 million faithful made the journey, according to the Saudi Embassy in Washington — and that figure does not include tourism outside the annual pilgrimage season, which has also grown dramatically.
Construction in both the holy cities — especially around the Grand Mosque in Mecca, toward which all Muslims turn when praying, and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, where Muhammad is buried — has often been controversial. Some dissidents have compared Mecca’s emerging skyline to Las Vegas’. Recent projects include a modern clock tower hotel, decked with shopping malls, ballrooms and Jacuzzis. The structure rests on the site of what used to be an 18th century Ottoman citadel.

Saturday marks 20 years since the genocide at Srebrenica, a town in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian war. Serbian forces killed more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the massacre, and about 20,000 civilians were forced to flee the area. Historians say it was the worst episode of mass murder in Europe since World War II.

The Bosnian war lasted more than three and a half years and reached a climax in July 1995 when troops commanded by Gen. Ratko Mladic overran the U.N.-designated safe haven in Srebrenica. Mladic was later indicted for war crimes at The Hague, along with former Serbian and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic. Milosevic died in prison in 2006; Karadzic and Mladic are still facing the war crimes tribunal.
According to The Guardian newspaper, a new survey of evidence shows that the fall of Srebrenica was part of a policy by Britain, France, the United States and the United Nations to pursue peace at any price, something that happened at the expense of Srebrenica. Although the superpowers could not have predicted the extent of the massacre, they were aware of Mladic’s rhetoric calling for the Bosniak Muslim population of the region to “vanish completely.”
The war was finally brought to an end with the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in December 1995 in the U.S. after an agreement was reached among the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.
This Saturday, heads of state will gather at a memorial in Srebrenica to remember those killed. They will be welcomed by the mayor of Srebrenica and representatives of victims’ associations. Former President Bill Clinton, under whose administration the Dayton Accords were signed, is expected to lead a U.S. delegation at the ceremony.
During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Del Walters spoke to Ivica Puljic, the Washington, D.C., bureau chief of Al Jazeera Balkans, and to Adisada Dudic, an attorney and a witness of the massacre at Srebrenica, who joined the conversation from Sarajevo.
Puljic said that not addressing what happened in Srebrenica is a lack of political will. “People feel betrayed all over the region,” he said. “They couldn’t find a solution or justice all of these years. They’re expecting the United Nations to do something on their behalf.”
Last week U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon paid tribute to the victims of Srebrenica at a U.N. commemorative event, saying, “The United Nations, which was founded to prevent such crimes from recurring, failed in its responsibilities to protect the lives of innocent civilians seeking protection from the conflict and violence around them. The U.N. Secretariat, the Security Council and member states share the blame.”
Serbia has asked Russia to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution on the genocide in Srebrenica. It was drafted by the U.K. to mark the 20th anniversary and is expected to be voted on this week, but Belgrade says adopting the resolution would only deepen ethnic divisions in Bosnia.
“This is definitely a shame on the international community that we cannot stand together and actually call this genocide,” said Dudic. “The systematic murders that happened in the span of a few days were premeditated, deliberate murders. It’s been established by years of testimony, evidence and witnesses reliving horrific events during the trials. It’s been established by the ICJ [International Court of Justice] and ICTY [International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia] as genocide. So today the international community should respect the victims and honor their pain and suffering and call it by the proper name so we can begin some process of reconciliation.”
Puljic agreed and said the 20th anniversary of signing the Dayton Accords is a good opportunity to focus on Bosnia. “To all the people who are denying that something happened in Srebrenica, denial is the last stage of genocide. The United Nations and the U.S. government have documents proving that it was genocide.”
Regarding former leaders being charged with war crimes 20 years later, Dudic said, “I must admit the trials are slow, but the people of Srebrenica are grateful that they’re happening. We do want the trials to proceed, and we do want the people who are responsible to face their trials and actually hear the testimonies of the witnesses.”
Dudic said financial compensation may be an option but added, “I don’t know how you can put a price on all this. The debate should be more about how a lot of the families — including mothers, sisters, daughters and sons — are left with no way of feeding themselves. Bosnia is still in disarray, and many people from Srebrenica are still in financial ruin. Financial compensation may help provide an education for someone or help them start their lives over, but there is no way to put a price tag on the pain that they are suffering and will likely continue feel for the rest of their lives.”

Another deadline is approaching this week for finding an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. But with reports of Tehran making demands on major points of the deal, another extension on the talks is also highly likely. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stated that his country will only sign a deal if international sanctions are lifted first.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif left the talks in Vienna on Sunday, saying he was going back to Tehran for consultations with Iranian leaders. He’s expected to return early Tuesday morning, the day of the actual deadline.

The U.S. and Iran reached a preliminary agreement in April. It was a comprehensive plan to limit Tehran’s nuclear program over the next 15 years, but it left out several significant issues meant to be addressed in this current round of talks. Some of those issues include the nature of inspections and the speed at which Iran could expand its nuclear infrastructure.

Talks on the issue took a new turn in 2013 when newly-elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani agreed to curb parts of Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for a partial lifting of sanctions. It was a thaw in relations between the U.S. and Iran after decades of hostilities. Now P5+1 members, consisting of China, France, Russia, Britain, the United States, plus Germany, have come together to negotiate a final agreement.

During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment "The Week Ahead," Del Walters spoke to Emad Kiyaei, Executive Director at the American Iranian Council, and to Olli Heinonen, a Senior Fellow at Harvard University, who joined the discussion from Boston.

“Iran faces a very important decision,” says Heinonen. “Some of them are more technical in nature, and some of them are more of a policy nature. They have to agree to the final parameters of the enrichment program, particularly on Research and Development (R&D).”

Kiyaei says the United States is the most powerful player within the P5+1 group. “We know these negotiations started in 2003 and failed in 2005, because the European Union powers then could not get a green light from Washington. America’s involvement in these P5+1 talks are very paramount.”

He adds that bilateral relations between the U.S. and Iran have been marred for so many years and play into these negotiations because there’s a great deal of mistrust on both sides.

Some analysts say that the longer it takes to come complete a deal, the worse it is for Iran. Heinonen disagrees, however, saying that it may cause some additional complications, but that he’s still optimistic.

Khamenei’s statement on the removal of sanctions before a deal can be reached is part of what he’s referred to as seven “major red lines” in the talks. Among them is a call for no long-term restrictions, no requirement of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verification as a precondition for other steps in the deal, and no inspections of Iran’s military sites.

Elaborating on his previous statements of rocky relations between the U.S. and Iran, Kiyaei says that, “every time there’s been a promise from Western world powers, for example sanctions relief or removal, we’ve seen that they’ve backtracked on that. So Ayatollah Khamenei is trying to make sure that Iran’s national interests are kept in mind, and that the Iranians are guaranteed sanctions relief will occur.”

Kiyaei adds that, “as we’ve seen throughout these negotiations, Iran has kept its end of the bargain, and has made major concessions, but the same from world powers is yet to be seen. The ‘red lines’ are being put in place not only to give Iran more power in the negotiations, but also to indicate that Iran is serious about its own end of the commitment, as long as the world powers reciprocate.”

The U.S. and China will hold their seventh Strategic and Economic Dialogue this week in Washington. On the agenda will be a range of regional and global issues, including territorial disputes among Asian nations in the South China Sea.
The six nations with competing claims to the area are China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. The territories in dispute are the Spratly Islands, the Scarborough Shoal and the Parcel Islands. Beijing says it’s nearly done with a land reclamation project the Spratlys, something that has drawn sharp criticism from Washington.
Beijing dates its claim to the South China Sea to the Xia and Han dynasties, which ruled as far back as 2,000 B.C. During China’s republican era, in the first half of the 20th century, it mapped and named 291 islands and reefs in the region. The U.S. says the disputed territory is in international waters and wants the United Nations to determine sovereignty.

At the heart of the dispute is a major trade route, through which most of China’s oil imports flow. Control of the area could allow Beijing to disrupt shipments to all other countries in East and Southeast Asia as well as deny access to foreign military forces, such as the United States’.
The different nations are also trying to assert rights over fishing grounds and potentially vast undersea oil and gas reserves.
During The Week Ahead segment on Al Jazeera America, David Shuster spoke to Isaac Stone Fish, Asia Editor at Foreign Policy magazine. Stone Fish said that past meetings haven’t produced substantial results but that this one could be different.
“It is a very significant meeting,” he said. “With all of the tensions going on right now in the South China Sea, we might actually see some news coming out of these meetings.” He added, however, that it won’t consume the entire dialogue.
“I think the South China Sea is something where [the U.S.] clearly has the upper hand and China recognizes that other countries in Southeast Asia are seeing that it’s the aggressor, so I think the South China Sea is not going to dominate the talks.”
Stone Fish said that other topics the United States will want to discuss include North Korea, trade and Internet hacking. Earlier this month, a breach of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management network compromised sensitive security clearance information of millions of federal employees and contractors. Although the U.S. has not been able to verify those responsible, it has pointed the finger at Chinese hackers.
“The Chinese really don’t like to talk about this, pointing out that the United States is not the only one that gets hacked. China and Chinese companies get hacked a lot, and we just know a lot less about it,” he said.
Stone Fish said that “China is the world’s second-most-powerful country and they really are ready to compete with us economically, militarily and politically.”
The two nations hope to further their cooperation when Chinese President Xi Jinping makes his first state visit to the United States this September.

The United States is looking for new ways to help defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as the group wields increasing power in the region. For example, the State Department said on Thursday, the U.S. will deliver 1,000 anti-tank weapons to Iraq in the coming weeks to combat suicide bombings and other attacks by ISIL fighters. 
Al Jazeera’s Jamie McIntyre reports that the U.S. is debating whether to send joint tactical air controllers, highly trained specialists who work alongside combat troops on the ground, using laser designators and GPS to call in direct strikes with pinpoint accuracy.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey has stopped short of recommending the tactical air controllers, however, because of the risk of more American casualties, and because it would shift the U.S. role from one of advising and assisting to a ground combat role.
Iraqi forces backed by Shia militias say they have made gains against ISIL recently by recapturing key parts of the northern oil refinery town of Beiji. Government and ISIL forces have been fighting for control of the town and its resources.
Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week that coalition forces have killed about 10,000 ISIL fighters in Iraq and Syria since the coalition airstrikes began.
During Al Jazeera America's Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Del Walters spoke to Larry Korb, a former assistant U.S. secretary of defense, and to Harleen Gambhir, a counterterrorism analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. Both guests joined the discussion from Washington.
Gambhir said that “casualty estimates aren’t equivalent to measures of strategic success. While we’ve seen U.S.-led coalition airstrikes have succeeded in hitting ISIL fighters and installations, the group is still growing in numbers each and every month.”
Gambhir said she expects a major offensive by ISIL later this month to mark the first anniversary of the group’s declaring itself a caliphate. “We’re actually seeing indications of a new strategic phase for ISIL in Syria," she said. "It’s gained the city of Palmyra, which is in the center of the country, and may start to move towards the Syrian central corridor.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a 2016 presidential candidate, has said “ISIL exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by ISIL. These hawks also wanted to bomb [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad, which would have made ISIL’s job even easier. They created these people.”
Korb said he agrees with Paul’s statement. “Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was the forerunner of ISIL, didn’t exist until we went in there. Our going into Iraq in 2003 was one of the greatest strategic blunders in the history of the United States. Not only has it created ISIL, it’s empowered Iran.”
Iraq was invaded twice by the United States. The first Gulf War, in 1991, involving a global coalition, was known as Operation Desert Storm. The second Gulf War, dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom by President George W. Bush, was conducted by a smaller coalition in 2003 and was met by mass protests around the world.
Korb said ISIL is a group taking advantage of what’s happening in the Middle East, including the Arab Spring, adding that “even though we’ve supposedly killed 10,000 of them, the fact of the matter is that they’re getting recruits from all over the world.”
Gambhir said that in order to resolve the conflict, “we need both a military and a political solution. We need to empower the Iraqi security forces and empower moderate rebels on the ground in Syria. Right now we’re just focusing on Iraq and just focusing on military means.”

The White House is expected to remove Cuba from the United States’ state sponsor of terrorism list later this week. Despite progress during the talks between the two countries, negotiators have failed to reach an agreement on exchanging ambassadors.

The assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Roberta Jacobson, said, “We made great progress … but we still have a few things that need to be ironed out, and we're going to do that as quickly as possible. I do remain optimistic, but I'm also a realist about 54 years that we have to overcome.”

Cuba was placed on the U.S. sponsor or terrorism list during Ronald Reagan’s administration in 1982. It’s one of four other countries on the list, along with Iran, Sudan and Syria.

Cuba and the U.S. were once close to sparking a global nuclear war. Former Cuban President Fidel Castro nationalized all businesses in his country after taking power, prompting the United States to close its embassy in Havana in 1961 and impose a crippling embargo. Later that year, the U.S. tried to overthrow Castro in a failed coup known as the Bay of Pigs incident.

Castro then turned to the Soviet Union for help, setting off decades of mistrust between Washington and Havana.

It wasn’t until 2012, when Raúl Castro took over power from his ailing brother Fidel Castro, that Cuba suggested normalizing relations with the United States. U.S. President Barack Obama responded by easing some restrictions on financial transactions with Cuban parties and kick-starting talks in January.

Not everyone is on board with the president’s strategy, but many are optimistic about better relations between the two countries.

During Al Jazeera America's Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Lisa Fletcher spoke to Christopher Sabatini, the founder and editor-in-chief of the website Latin America Goes Global, and Paul Bonicelli, a former assistant administrator at USAID.

Bonicelli said that he does not agree with Obama’s approach on the negotiations. “The president hasn’t really required concessions from this government,” he said. “The Castro brothers are running a dictatorship, and you would think that the president would require at least some movement on politics, on economics and on our national security interests before he’s willing to give them everything. He could have gotten a lot of Republican support for that kind of negotiation, but he hasn’t asked for anything in return.”

Sabatini said, however, that the Cuban government made changes even before Obama’s announcement in December to begin negotiations. “Right now Cuba has far fewer political prisoners than it has had in decades,” he said. “Detentions and harassment continue, but there have also been economic reforms. There were over 400,000 entrepreneurs that Cuba’s allowing to help grow the economy and help bolster socialism. That’s been really important in creating some space for civic activism.”

Bonicelli disagreed, saying “entrepreneurial activity is not up in Cuba. In fact, the number is down over the years because the Cuban government has been more talk than action. I think the president missed a great opportunity to sit down with Congress and get a bipartisan deal.”

Sabatini said that there is a better chance for success with diplomatic negotiations. He said, “Cuba hasn’t been engaging in sponsoring terrorism for decades. In fact, it is sponsoring a peace negotiation between the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] guerrillas and the Colombian government, one of our allies.”

When asked how opening U.S. trade with Cuba would be different from what Canada and Europe have been doing with the island for decades, Sabatini said “neither of them is 90 miles off the coast of Cuba, and neither of them have close to 2 million Cubans living on their shores.” He added that once the Castro brothers are out of power, “we need to be engaged in Cuba. We cannot risk having that regime collapse without us having some sort of stake in its present if we want to have a role in the future.”

Ireland will be the first country to hold a referendum on marriage rights for same-sex couples. There are 18 nations globally that have legalized same-sex marriage, with some states in the U.S. and Mexico also allowing it.

Irish voters will decide on Friday whether or not to change the constitutional definition of marriage, allowing same-sex couples to wed. Homosexuality was illegal in Ireland until 1993, and the country began recognizing civil partnerships in 2011.

Recent polls have shown there is more than enough support in favor of same-sex marriage. According an Irish Times poll of 1,200 voters, 58 percent of respondents said they planned to vote in favor of the measure, while 25 percent planned to vote against it, with 17 percent undecided.

Gay rights campaigners say they have won the support of major political parties and that a “yes” result in the referendum would give same-sex couples more legal protection and broader social acceptance.

Last month the country’s Health Minister Leo Varadkar was the first member of the government to publicly announce that he is gay. He said the decision came from his desire to be “fully honest” with the people of Ireland.
Ireland is traditionally a deeply Roman Catholic society, with the church wielding tremendous influence. Support for the church has dropped dramatically, however, over the past three decades. The church has warned that if the vote passes, it may no longer perform the civil parts of a marriage service. That means that couples married in a Catholic ceremony would need a separate civil registration.

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin, warned that the changed definition would interfere with the tradition of marriage, adding that “the union of a man or woman is open to the procreation of children.”

Anti-gay-marriage campaigners put out an advertisement saying, “You should be able to have reservations about gay marriage without being called a homophobe.”

During Al Jazeera America's Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Erica Pitzi spoke to Quentin Fottrell, an Irish journalist for The Wall Street Journal and a gay rights activist, and to Richard Socarides, a former special assistant and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton.

Fottrell summed up the vote by saying, “It basically enshrines marriage for same-sex couples in the constitution, which currently does not exist. This is really about ensuring that the children of same-sex couples have the same rights, legal protections and constitutional protections as those of parents of the opposite sex.”

Socarides said, “A lot of it depends on how these issues develop politically. In Ireland, there’s no legal requirement that the issue be put to a public referendum. We [in the U.S.] don’t really have national referendums. The closest thing we have in the United States would be an effort to amend the U.S. Constitution, and some people have talked about amending the Constitution to prohibit gay marriage. But we don’t usually like to put people’s civil rights up for a public referendum.”

Fottrell said the “yes” campaign in Ireland has been extraordinarily well organized. “Tens of thousands of Irish people have emigrated since 2008, since the Great Recession. Upward of 70 percent of them are in their 20s, who would naturally skew towards more liberal causes. Although the polls suggest that it will be a “yes” vote, it will really depend on a high turnout on the day.”

Socarides agreed but said he believes the poll will be closer than people expect.

A “yes” outcome would change the social future of Ireland. Fottrell said, “This will send a huge message to the [gay and lesbian] children of Ireland that their relationships are just as important as a straight kid.”

“No matter what the result, people will understand people better afterwards,” said Socarides. “It’s important because Ireland is an important country politically. It’s an important country in the EU, and this sends an important message.”

Leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) will be meeting with President Barack Obama this week at the White House and at Camp David. The six member nations of the GCC are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, however, will not attend the meeting. The country’s foreign minister said the monarch will stay at home to deal with the situation in Yemen. That crisis, along with Syria, and U.S. talks over Iran’s nuclear program are expected to top the agenda at the meeting.
On Thursday, in a 98-1 vote, the Senate passed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Act; the House of Representatives is expected to debate its version of the measure in the coming week.
The GCC monarchies, all Sunni, are nervous about Shia Iran’s growing influence in the region as it backs Syrian government forces and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. 
U.S. talks over Tehran’s nuclear program have also unsettled Arab Gulf leaders.

To counter Iran’s influence, the GCC members are expected to ask the United States for advanced weapons, aircraft and missile defense systems. They’re also hoping for U.S. support in backing opposition forces in Syria to oust President Bashar al-Assad. Saudi Arabia and Iran have large oil reserves, and with dropping oil prices, Riyadh is pushing to keep sanctions against Tehran in place.
Saudi Arabia has proposed a five-day humanitarian cease-fire in Yemen that could begin as early as Tuesday. The Saudi-led coalition began airstrikes in Yemen in March. The United Nations humanitarian coordinator has called those strikes a violation of international law.
During Al Jazeera America's Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Del Walters spoke to Richard Murphy, a former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and to Khalil Jahshan, the executive director of the Arab Center in Washington.
Murphy said the GCC states are cautioning against cooperation with Iran, saying their message will be strong in that regard. “They point to what they see as the loss of Iraq and Syria and the activities of Hezbollah and now the Houthis in Yemen as examples of a malicious Iranian policy.”
Jahshan said that Gulf Arab leaders “feel the nuclear deal would liberate Iran by removing sanctions, restoring seized funds and allowing Tehran to resume all kinds of policies that they view as antagonistic to their own interests in the region … They feel that the U.S. is contributing to that unsettling situation by signing this agreement with Iran.”
Another issue of great interest to the Arab nations is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Nation magazine reported in March, “Early last month, the Department of Defense released a secret report done in 1987 by the Pentagon-funded Institute for Defense Analysis that essentially confirms the existence of Israel’s nukes.” The Arms Control Association and The Guardian newspaper have reported that Israel has 80 to 100 warheads.
Murphy said that “Arab leaders see nuclear power in Israel’s hands as a trump card blocking any progress on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and avoiding pressure from world powers, but they, in the region, are less today concerned about Israel than they are about Iran.”
Jahshan said while the Gulf Arab nations view the danger from Iran as greater in terms of their national security, they will send Obama a clear message that they view the Israeli issue as an inconsistent aspect of U.S. foreign policy. “On the one hand, the U.S. is preaching nonproliferation to the Arab side — trying to convince them to support the deal with Iran and telling them that we have to keep the area free of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons — yet at the same time looking the other way when it comes to Israel with regards to this huge arsenal of nuclear weapons that it had amassed with the acquiescence of the United States,” he said.
In terms of fighting Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Murphy said he believes Arab countries are still some time away from having a unified force to deal with the group. “They will try to co-opt elements within Syria and Iraq who are opposed to ISIL and who are also opposed to the Iranians, if they can find those.”

The seventh Summit of the Americas will be held at the end of this week in Panama City.  The event has been held every three years since 1994. It’s a chance for leaders from North, Central and South America to come together and discuss issues affecting the region. Topics expected to be on the agenda include trade, security and migration.
This is the first year that Cuba has been invited to attend the summit. All the Latin American and Caribbean leaders at the last summit, in Colombia in 2012, voted to invite Cuba. The U.S. and Canada have traditionally opposed its presence.
The summit comes just months after Washington and Havana decided in December to normalize relations after half a century of hostilities. Al Jazeera’s David Ariosto said that one of Havana’s major stipulations was that its removal from the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism. Cuba also needs U.S. cash to help boost its economy, he said.
U.S. relations with Brazil have been frosty since Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff canceled a state visit to the United States in 2013 over allegations of U.S. surveillance in Brazil. The United States is Brazil’s second-largest export market, and Brazil could use a boost from the U.S. as it faces a stalling economy.

Another topic expected to be discussed at the summit is China’s role in the region. Beijing has lent Latin American and Caribbean countries nearly $120 billion over the past decade.
During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Thomas Drayton spoke to Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, and Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister of Mexico.  
“I think the summit is a really important opportunity for the United States and Cuba to show that both countries have turned over a new leaf,” said Farnsworth. “I think the question is going to be what concrete actions come out of this particular meeting.”
He added that another question is what the posture will be of the other countries at the summit. “This isn’t just the United States and Cuba meeting. It’s all the countries of the Western Hemisphere. Some of them are going to be quite focused on the fact that they don’t much like the United States, whether or not there’s a rapprochement with Cuba.” Farnsworth said relations between the U.S. and Venezuela could become a pressing issue during the summit.
“There should be a dialogue between not only Venezuela and the United States,” said Castañeda, “but also between Venezuela and the inter-American community regarding its constant, systematic and increasingly brutal violation of human rights.” He added, “Unfortunately, it looks like the Latin Americans will not want to take on Venezuela on this issue, nor will the United States, because it does not seem to want to have a public debate with Venezuela get in the way of the rapprochement with Cuba.”
Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro said he has 10 million signatures from Venezuelans urging the U.S. to remove sanctions on a number of its officials. The U.S. imposed the sanctions last month, citing human rights violations.
Farnsworth said that Mexico, Colombia and Chile don’t have much sympathy for the Venezuelan regime, though they might publicly show support and solidarity. He said their “real interest is developing an economic relationship with the United States, and so their hope would be that Venezuela does not take over the summit.”
Castañeda said, “Obama, unlike many of his predecessors, has done just about everything in terms of so-called respect for Latin American nationalism and old-fashioned anti-imperialism.”
He added that President Hugo Chávez, in an interview before his death, when asked if he thought there was any way to get along with the United States, said, “As long as the United States is an imperialist power and does not have a socialist government, there is no way.” Castañeda said, “That pretty much sums up what most of the Latin Americans … think about relations with the United States.”

Relations between the U.S. and Venezuela have soured once again. This week ties between the two countries will be discussed during a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill.
On Sunday the National Assembly gave Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro the power to legislate by decree for the rest of 2015. He requested the expanded powers to counter what he sees as threats from the U.S. government.
U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order last week saying the Latin American nation poses an “extraordinary threat to the national security” of the United States. He imposed sanctions on seven Venezuelan military and intelligence officials, accusing them of human rights violations, and extended the sanctions to members of their families. The individuals are barred from doing business with American citizens, traveling to the United States and could have their assets in the U.S. seized.
Foreign ministers of the 12-nation Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) have stood behind Caracas, calling Obama’s executive order a threat to Venezuelan sovereignty, and they’re demanding that Washington revoke the decree. Cuba’s government has added that the sanctions are “arbitrary and aggressive.”
Maduro responded to Obama’s move by telling the U.S. to reduce the size of its embassy, and also putting in place new visa requirements for Americans. He also appointed one of the blacklisted officials to be his minister of interior, shoring up support at home by saying his nation will “never kneel before this arrogant empire.”
During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Thomas Drayton spoke to Christopher Sabatini, an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and to Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, who joined the discussion from Washington, D.C.
Sabatini said it’s unclear why Maduro would need the special powers given to him. “He already had a strong majority in the national assembly,” he said. “He’s trying to drum up expectation and fear to consolidate power.”
Farnsworth said there’s also no immediate threat to the U.S. from Venezuela. “This is standard language that’s required in order to move forward to sanction foreign government officials,” he said. “It’s allowed Maduro and his government to dramatically overreact for their own purposes.” Farnsworth said Maduro is trying to gain support because he faces parliamentary elections later this year and currently has a low approval rating.
Venezuela began a 10-day military drill on Saturday, in which nearly 100,000 armed forces participated. They used shoulder-fired missiles, fighter planes and armored trucks. Sailors performed drills in the Caribbean and soldiers defended the country’s largest oil refinery in a simulated attack.
Venezuela is one of the top five exporters of oil to the United States. Its oil revenues account for about 95 percent of the country’s export earnings. In December, Maduro said Washington was starting an oil war, accusing it of trying to flood the market with shale oil to destroy Russia’s and Venezuela’s economies.
Opposition groups to Maduro’s government continued to protest, even after their top leaders were jailed. They’re upset over a deteriorating economy that has led to massive food shortages.
Farnsworth said that “when President [Hugo] Chávez was president, because he was the founder of the revolution, he had the flexibility to make changes where they needed to be. President Maduro doesn’t have that flexibility because his mandate comes from being the successor of Chávez.”
Maduro and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden shook hands a month ago, expressing interest in better relations during a meeting in Brazil. Since then, Maduro had accused Biden of plotting to overthrow him. He has also accused the U.S. of plans to impose a blockade on his country.
The seventh Summit of the Americas will be held next month in Panama. “This is probably going to be one of the most interesting summits ever,” said Sabatini. “You’ll have Obama and Maduro meeting face to face, and you’ll have some of the courting elements, if you will, of the Cuban regime,” a reference to recent talks and warming of relations between the U.S. and Cuba.
Farnsworth said, “I think the United States was hoping that this summit would be an opportunity to talk about the change in the Cuba relationship and to restore economic growth across the region. But the overheated rhetoric coming out of Venezuela — as well as the support that the Venezuelans are getting from other countries — has changed that dynamic politically.”

This week marks four years since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al Assad. The uprising, which had been a part of the larger Arab Spring, spiraled into a civil war that has left more than 200,000 people dead and more than 9 million others displaced.
On Friday the U.N. Security Council approved a U.S.-drafted resolution condemning the use of toxic chemicals in Syria, including chlorine. The council did not assign blame for previous chemical attacks, like the one in Ghouta in 2013 that killed hundreds of people, including children, but it did threaten military action for any future attacks. After multiple chemical attacks, Syria cooperated with U.N. inspectors and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in 2014 to have its chemical weapon stockpiles shipped out of the country and destroyed.
Over the weekend, Syrian government forces conducted an airstrike that killed a senior commander of Jabhat Al-Nusra (the Nusra Front). Abu Homam al-Shami was said to be the second in command of the group. Reports say that three other senior leaders were killed along with him. Jabhat Al-Nusra is Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria and is a bitter rival of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which controls about a third of Iraq and Syria.
Meanwhile, the European Union is imposing more sanctions on people with ties to the Assad regime. Seven Syrian businessmen have had their assets frozen and are barred from entry into eurozone countries. One of them is accused of acting as a middleman for oil purchases from ISIL. The EU has placed sanctions on 218 people and 69 Syrian entities since 2011.
During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Thomas Drayton spoke to Anna Therese Day, an independent journalist, and to Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at Oklahoma University, who joined the discussion from Norman, Oklahoma.
Day said of the conflict, “I couldn’t have ever imagined that the international community would allow it to get to this point.”
Analysts say the effects of the war will continue to haunt people for quite some time. Valerie Amos, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and an emergency relief coordinator, recently said, “The trauma that people have experienced — and what this has done to Syria's children — is probably something that can never be repaired.”
In 2012 fighters calling themselves the Free Syrian Army formed a group to launch counterattacks against government forces. Then in 2013, Iranian-backed, Lebanon-based Hezbollah fighters joined the fight alongside Syrian government troops.
Landis said, “The effort to build the rebel movement into a cohesive and unified front has failed almost entirely."
Initially, the United States funded armed groups to weaken Assad’s regime, many members of which have now joined groups like ISIL. “America has really turned,” said Landis, “almost 180 degrees from being an enemy of Assad, sanctioning and weakening him, to today bombing many of his opponents and in a sense adopting Assad as a strategic ally, even though they will not work with him directly.”
Since last summer, the U.S. and coalition forces have launched nearly 3,000 airstrikes against ISIL fighters in parts of Syria and Iraq. Israel has also launched airstrikes into Syria, often targeting weapon systems that it says may go to Hezbollah.
The U.S. has had frosty relations with the Syrian government, even before the current war. Day said the U.S. should have taken advantage of high level defections from Syrian forces to build an opposition that could be the military force of a future Syria. Landis said that although many Syrians have given up on the West, “they can’t entirely give up, because the West has guns and it has money and the West is very powerful and they need powerful allies.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington, D.C., and is scheduled to address a Joint Meeting of Congress on Tuesday. It will be his third time making such a speech. It comes amid growing diplomatic tension between the United States and Israel. Invited by Republican House Speaker John Boehner, the move was intended to rebuke the White House for its nuclear talks with Iran.
This past week, Secretary of State John Kerry criticized what he called Netanyahu’s “judgment” on Iran’s nuclear talks. He said there’s nothing to be lost by trying for a deal with Iran, arguing that, "Israel is safer today with the added time we have given, and the stoppage of the advances in the Iranian nuclear program than they were before we got that agreement, which, by the way, the prime minister opposed. He was wrong, and today he's saying we should extend that interim agreement.”
Top officials, including Vice President Joe Biden won’t be attending the speech. President Barack Obama has decided not to invite Netanyahu to the White House during this trip, saying it would be inappropriate two weeks before the Israeli election, which is scheduled for March 17.
Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice said during a television interview that Netanyahu’s speech will be “destructive” to U.S.-Israeli relations. At least 30 congressional Democrats are also planning not to attend the address. In return, Netanyahu has turned down an offer from senior Democrats to address them privately during his visit. That’s led to bigger questions about whether support for Israel is becoming a partisan issue in the United States.
During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Thomas Drayton spoke to Dov Waxman, a professor of Jewish studies and a co-director of the Middle East Center at Northeastern University, who joined the discussion from Boston, and Ari Ratner, a former State Department official who is now a fellow with the Truman National Security Project, who joined from Washington.  
“I think this has been a process that has been going on for some time,” said Waxman. “The Republican Party in particular has really sought to turn support for Israel into a wedge issue within U.S. domestic politics, in the hope of attracting some American Jewish support and donors as well as appealing to their own Christian evangelical base.”
He said it’s a process that’s been happening already, but that it’s now reached a new height with this speech. Ratner agrees. “I think it’s certainly true that Israel, like much of American politics has become more partisan,” he said. “It’s not only an issue between left and right, but it’s also a generational issue.”
Netanyahu’s speech will come a day after he addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He’s hoping his visit will reach out to multiple groups of people.
“He’s speaking to two audiences,” said Waxman. “He’s certainly speaking to his own domestic audience, just simply by his willingness to go, to defy the president. And by anticipating standing ovations from Congress, he’ll be displaying both his determination to defend Israel’s interests and show that Congress is behind him, that his problem is not with the United States but rather with President Obama himself.”
Also discussed during the segment were recent revelations by Al Jazeera and The Guardian newspaper that top secret Israeli documents revealed a split between what Netanyahu said about Iran at the United Nations in 2012 and what Israel intelligence found at the time.
Waxman said it proves that “there’s not only a difference of interpretation between Netanyahu and people in the Israeli security establishment but that there’s a difference of facts, and it’s something the prime minister should be asked about. More broadly, what this indicates is that has often been somewhat loose with the facts in terms of the immediacy of the danger [of Iran’s nuclear program]. It’s one of the problems that he faces now, coming across as the boy who cried wolf.”
Waxman said that Netanyahu has some legitimate concerns in the deal that’s rumored to be emerging but that his problem has been in not offering an alternative.
Ratner said that Netanyahu has had little impact on the negotiations themselves. “Part of Israel’s role is to play bad cop, and Netanyahu has done that effectively,” he said. “But from a long-term perspective, he’s certainly exacerbated the partisan divide both in Washington and generationally and is seen as a very controversial figure now.”

Greece negotiated a four-month extension of its bailout on Friday, which has helped the country to avoid defaulting on its loans. Once an outline is ready to show how Greece will keep its finances in check, the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund will review the reforms before officially ratifying the extension.

Greece joined the EU in 1981 and replaced its currency, the drachma, with the euro two decades later. The country was at risk of defaulting on its loans after years of unrestrained spending and borrowing. That led to the rest of the eurozone’s having to bail out Greece twice, once in 2010 and again in 2012, with $275 billion.

The assistance, however, came with strict austerity conditions, leading to multiple tax hikes and a nearly 27 percent unemployment rate. That led to anger among the population and to strikes and mass protests in the streets. Last month voters elected Alexis Tsipras from the anti-austerity Syriza party after he promised to renegotiate the country’s loan deal.

Greece’s eurozone creditors balked at Tsipras’ changing the terms of its bailout, and the country will still have to deliver on fiscal reforms by this summer to receive further financial assistance.

During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Richelle Carey spoke to Dan Kelemen, a political science professor at Rutgers University, and to Megan Greene, the chief economist with Manulife Asset Management, who joined the discussion from Boston.

“For the most part, Tsipras and the Greek government had to climb down from a lot of their big promises and their demands, although he’s spinning it as having won a battle,” said Kelemen. “In reality, he had to give up on most of what he wanted.”

Greene mostly agreed, saying that “the Greek government did have to climb down on a lot, but they did as well as they possibly could have.” She said that Greek banks may be able to use European Central Bank funding now to prop up the banking sector.

In terms of unemployment, Kelemen said the government will have to deliver sustained growth for quite some time before there can be a significant dent in the jobless rate. He said Athens will also have to tackle the underlying structural problems with corruption.

Greene said the compromises that Greece had to make actually benefited the European countries that are lending to it. She said, “We haven’t seen any financial or economic contagion, because it’s been kept within Greece.”

“It’s a huge election year this year in Europe,” she added. “There are elections in Spain, Portugal, the U.K. and Finland. There are regional elections in France and Germany. And in almost all of those countries, you have a major anti-establishment party that has gained a lot of support in the past year.”

She said we could see a major anti-establishment movement spreading throughout Europe on the back of Syriza’s victory in Greece.

But Kelemen said it depends on how the situation is spun. He said creditors will push the idea that they have forced Syriza to back down, in an attempt to send a message to other similar parties across Europe.

Monday marks five years since the devastating earthquake in Haiti that left more than 200,000 people dead and 300,000 others injured. An additional 1.5 million people were made homeless. About 95 percent of the deaths occurred in and around the capital Port-au-Prince.
However, not much has changed for people on the ground. Financial assistance is not reaching the people who need it the most, and much of that is blamed on corruption and political turmoil. It has caused many people to take to the streets calling for government accountability. Some are even calling on President Michel Martelly to step down.
Haiti was already classified as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere before the earthquake, but an additional $7.8 billion in damages utterly devastated the nation’s economy.
During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment, “The Week Ahead,” Thomas Drayton spoke to Ulysse Toussaint, a documentary filmmaker from Haiti; Marc Levy, based at Columbia University, where he is deputy director of the Center for the International Earth Science Information Network; and Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo, who joined the discussion from Port-au-Prince.
Toussaint says the earthquake collapsed all government buildings, along with hospitals, schools, and homes.
“It was unprecedented. It wasn’t something people had been preparing for,” says Levy. “But after the initial shock, people started looking for the most appropriate response.”
Elizondo says that there has been progress. The number of homeless people has fallen to about 70,000 from more than a million, and most of the tent shelters are now gone. People can enroll in a program that houses people rent-free for the first year. He says, however, that many people are still suffering and that poverty is still very high, with a 40 percent unemployment rate.
Levy says he would refer to Haiti as a fragile state rather than a failed state. “It has many challenges and a history of recurring crises, but it still has a lot of potential, talent, and ambition.”
Toussaint explains that having two different types of governments — one in the capital and one in the countryside — makes it difficult for either to have a presence across the entire country. He said that Haiti, in many ways, is still a French colony, despite having won its independence two centuries ago, and that the government in Port-au-Prince is controlled by Paris. He says most people fled the capital after the earthquake to the countryside, and the government there tends to be more cooperative with the people.
Toussaint adds that elections in Haiti are financed by external forces, such as France, Canada, and the United States, and the outcome often depends on who sponsors the vote.
Levy adds the earthquake itself was a kind of stress test that everyone failed, including the donors, the government, and the civic organizations within the country. “The success comes not just through rebuilding structures, but through building trust.”
A trust that Toussaint says is lacking because the people on the ground haven’t seen the aid and financial assistance that they were told was sent to them.

The Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) is meeting for a three-day summit in the United Arab Emirates this week. OAPEC is similar to the larger oil cartel, OPEC, but is made up of only Arab countries.

The meeting comes amid weeks of falling gas prices. Saudi Arabia, the largest petroleum exporter says it won’t cut output to prop oil prices, even if non-OPEC countries do so. Part of Riyadh’s decision to ride out the slump is an attempt to wield regional power. With enough cash reserves and low production costs, the move won’t affect the gulf nation the same way it will hit places like Iraq, Iran, Russia or Venezuela.

On a single day last week, Dubai’s stock market dropped by nearly 8 percent, its largest one-day decline in six years. Analysts say financial markets are overreacting, saying oil prices will return to a high point within six months. Oil has traditionally been a uniquely volatile commodity, one often affected by global political developments.

During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment, “The Week Ahead,” Richelle Carey spoke to Steven Kopits, managing director of Princeton Energy Advisors; and to Max Fraad-Wolff, chief economist at Manhattan Venture Partners.

Fraad-Wolff says, “we are seeing a meaningful global redistribution of wealth to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a day, with wealth being distributed away from producers to consumers.

Kopits say that advanced country consumers such as the United States, Japan, and European nations, will be the primary beneficiaries. He added, though, that US shale producers will likely suffer for a while; and that the companies that could suffer substantially are oil giants like Shell and Chevron.

He also says that the countries who are likely to benefit the most in this situation are Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. They take in a high percentage of oil imports will likely rebound in a big way this year.

Russia, on the other hand, is being adversely affected by the drop in gas prices. It’s one of the three biggest oil producers in the world, and its economy is heavily dependent on oil production. Around 68 percent of Russia’s foreign export revenues come from energy and around half of its federal budget is made up of taxes brought in from energy exports.

The US and other Western nations are using the situation as an opportunity to pressure Moscow over its involvement in the Ukraine crisis that’s been ongoing since February.

“The question for the Russians is, can they survive the short-term pain escalating fast from political, geopolitical, and military situations to get to the long-term benefits,” says Fradd-Wolff.

Kopits says he expects the status quo for a while on Ukraine, which means Russia will probably face another six months of serious financially hardship, including repercussions from sanctions.

With technology advancing faster than ever before, cybersecurity has become a major concern. Hackers aren’t the only ones, though, who are wreaking havoc online. Governments have also used cyberattacks as weapons against each other.

Stuxnet was a “worm” created in 2007, allegedly by the U.S. and Israel, that attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities. Neither government has claimed responsibility, but Stuxnet is now widely accepted as the first known cyberweapon to cause major physical damage to its intended target. The only problem was that the worm escaped Iranian facilities and spread among the general public.

It’s alleged that Iran launched a cyberattack on the world’s largest oil company, Saudi Aramco, in retaliation for Stuxnet in 2012, but that has not been confirmed. Although the attack was said to be primitive and unsophisticated, it still managed to wipe out the data in much of the company’s main computer network, and it affected 30,000 Aramco personal computers.

Last week in a cyberattack that shut down Sony Pictures for days, hackers released sensitive data from the studio’s network, including employee salaries and high-quality versions of several unreleased films.

Blame is being pointed at North Korea — and although Pyongyang has denied any involvement, it has praised the move nonetheless, citing the movie “The Interview” as offensive for alluding to an assassination attempt on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Previously, North Korea reached out to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to file a complaint, calling the movie “an act of war.”

During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Thomas Drayton discussed cybersecurity and the ramifications of global cyberwarfare with Dan Guido, a hacker-in-residence at New York University’s Polytechnic School of Engineering, and with Allan Friedman, a research scientist at the Cyber Security Policy Research Institute of George Washington University.

Guido said it takes very little effort and small teams to break into major companies. He said, “It’s very simple to gather information about individuals on the Internet,” adding that clicking on the wrong link can give hackers complete control over the targeted computers and access to a company’s entire website, using very few resources.

Friedman said there are a number of different ways to trace the origin of a cyberattack. The forensics level is the most technical, unpacking clues as to who was involved. On an intelligence level, investigating things like who is the most likely to benefit or who may have been talking about an attack before one happens can help point to a culprit. On a national security level, hackers are generally trying to engage in a strategic attack to achieve a political outcome.

He added that there are different types of attacks. Organized crime groups may try to access random people’s credit card numbers. Some hackers engage in economic espionage, trying to steal companies’ secrets.

Al Jazeera’s Jacob Ward said certain hackers have the patience and skills to find vulnerabilities in a system, plant malicious code and comb through the results for what they need. But he said the most common type of hacking happens through social engineering, with predators gathering data from the plethora of information that Internet users give out voluntarily through social media.

Anyone can access personal information about a person’s likes, way of living and family members though sites such as Facebook or a person’s location through applications such as FourSquare. He added that anyone can do it with enough charm and creativity.

Talks between the P5+1 group of countries and Iran remained incomplete as diplomats faced a Monday night deadline. Numerous questions about Tehran’s nuclear program were still unanswered.
On Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry held talks with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif and the European Union’s chief negotiator, Catherine Ashton. Their meeting was part of the larger P5+1 discussions that, in their latest form, have lasted for more than a year. The P5+1 consists the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the U.S., the United Kingdom, Russia, China and France) plus Germany.
Selling an agreement will be difficult for both sides. In the U.S. many Democrats and Republicans oppose any deal with Iran. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will need the approval of hard-liners at home, many of whom don’t want any deal with the United States.
By most accounts, one of the main sticking points between the two sides is how much sanction relief Iran would get in an exchange for closing down a significant part of its nuclear program. One of the reasons Washington is reluctant to lift sanctions is Tehran’s refusal to dismantle most of its centrifuges, used for enriching uranium.
During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Thomas Drayton spoke to Emad Kiyaei, a researcher for the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University, and to Olli Heinonen, a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Gevernment, who joined the conversation from Watertown, Massachusetts.
Kiyaei said there are two main issues at hand, one technical and the other political. “On the technical aspect, the two sides have bridged a lot of their differences. There still needs to be a political will for us to be able to push this nuclear deal forward.” He said that neither the U.S. nor Iran genuinely wants this deal to move forward and that delaying it is in their best interests.
Heinonen said that there has been progress over the past year but the biggest problem is defining the practical enrichment needs of Iran.
When asked who would benefit the most from a nuclear deal, Kiyaei said the international community and the region would benefit. “If Iran and the U.S. come to a resolution, it is the key to opening up bilateral relations to discuss an array of issues that are not just in the national interest of Iran but also the United States and regional powers.” He said it would open the possibility of discussions about fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), improving Persian Gulf security and seeking stability in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. He added that the key is ending the decades-long rift in relations between the U.S. and Iran.
Relations have been frosty between the two countries for decades, but that wasn’t always the case. The U.S. sold Iran its first nuclear research reactor in 1967, a friendship that fell apart 12 years later after the shah was overthrown and Iranian revolutionaries held 52 Americans hostage for more than a year.
Last year, when President Barack Obama reached out to Rouhani to work together on a deal, the two leaders’ brief telephone conversation was the first high-level contact between the two countries in 34 years.
Although Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, the U.S. and the rest of the international community want to make sure Tehran isn’t able to create a nuclear weapon within a year of beginning to pursue one. Although Israel is not part of the official talks, its leaders have been pushing for a halt to Iran’s nuclear program, not just a downgrade.
Heinonen said an extension is expected because it’s too late in the game to step away from a possible deal.
On Monday, according to The Associated Press, a well-placed Western diplomat said that elements were falling into place for an agreement to allow the talks  to continue for more than seven months. The diplomat told the AP that a broad agreement should be completed by March 1 of next year, with the final details to worked out by July 1.
Kiyaei said agreement on three main points is necessary to secure a deal: verifying that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful, monitoring it properly and putting in place transparency measures to ensure Iranian honesty.

President Obama is Asia for a 10-day trip. He will attend regional summits as a means of implementing his pivot to Asia strategy that redirects U.S. attention to the region.
It will be the first time in two years that Obama will be attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, hosted this year by Beijing. China’s growing economic power has many in the region worried about its influence. Washington is also concerned about China’s growing power as a counter to its own influence on the global stage. Beijing, on the other hand, views U.S. interest in the region as a means of containing China’s power.

The president's second stop will be in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, where he will meet leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In Myanmar, he is expected to push for humanitarian reforms in the country, where democratic reforms have slowed since his last visit in 2012.
His final stop will be in Brisbane, Australia for a G20 Summit that will bring together as many as 4,000 delegates. Among a host of topics on the agenda will be development, energy, and global institutions.
During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment “The Week Ahead,” Thomas Drayton was joined by Isaac Stone Fish, asia editor at Foreign Policy; and Ed Gresser, executive director of Progressive Economy, for a discussion of the political, military and economic issues surrounding the president’s trip.
“Over the last four or five years, especially since the financial crisis, China has been a lot more assertive,” says Stone Fish. “They do still see the United States as a super power, but they don’t see it as the only super power. Though they don’t actually say it, they now see themselves as equals to the United States.”
Gresser says Obama’s image is not as bad and many think, despite the recent Republican takeover of Congress in the midterm elections. “The president is going out there with a lot of public and congressional backing from both parties.”
The segment also included a report from Al Jazeera’s Melissa Chan, who noted that although the trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is not officially on the president’s agenda, it’s likely to be a major talking point throughout his trip. The TPP a deal between the U.S. and 11 Asian countries which addresses tariff issues, copyrights, labor standards, and environmental measures. Critics in the U.S. worry that it could give rise to the tyranny of multi-national corporations.
China was intentionally excluded from the TPP, but the U.S. insists it would welcome Beijing if it wanted to join. Chan says Obama’s trip isn’t likely to solve any big problems, but hopes to start the process of rebuilding US-Asia relations that many Asians feel Washington has neglected.
Gresser believes the Senate will also be supportive of the TPP. “In general, there’s pretty good bi-partisan support for the president on this. If he brings home a deal that opens markets, preserves the global internet, raises labor standards, I think it will be well-received.”
Stone Fish adds that the biggest challenge for the TPP is public awareness. He says not many people know what the TPP is and what it means for the average American. He says Beijing is also investing in its new Silk Road Agreement. “On Saturday, Beijing offered $40 billion to start a fund that would help build infrastructure between China and Southeast and Central Asia.”
Al Jazeera’s Adrian Brown also joined the discussion by satellite from Beijing, saying that China sees itself at the center of the summit’s regional economic integration. “China also wants to see the creation of a vast investment bank that analysts say could rival the Asian Development Bank and even the International Monetary Fund.” The U.S., Japan, South Korea, and Australia, however, are reluctant to sign onto the idea because of concerns about governance and accountability issues. 
Gresser says there are two major incentives for the U.S. to pursue trade deals with Asia. “If we can export more, that will accelerate our ability to grow the economy and put more people back to work.” He adds that it’s also important for the US to be able to shape the economy in Asia in a way that will benefit the United States.

Ukrainians are voting in parliamentary elections eight months after protests sparked an uprising across the country. Discontent began after President Viktor Yanukovich rejected a trade deal with the European Union. The move was widely seen as a shift away from Europe and a move toward deeper ties with Moscow. Eventually, it led to Yanukovich’s ouster.
Now the crisis has moved far beyond the question of who should be Ukraine’s next leader. Tensions were exacerbated after Russia annexed Crimea, creating the biggest conflict between Moscow and the West since the Cold War. The United States says it wants Russia to stop its military support for Russian separatists in Ukraine. Moscow wants Washington to cut off economic and military aid to Kiev.
During Al Jazeera America's Sunday night segment "The Week Ahead," Thomas Drayton spoke to Amy Knight, a widely published Russia expert, and to Nicolai Petro, professor of politics at the University of Rhode Island.
“The most pressing thing is this election was whether or not the government was going to continue to support the Minsk Peace Initiative,” Petro said, referring to a peace agreement signed last month by the Ukrainian and Russian governments and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. “That’s a little bit less certain now that Poroshenko’s party came out as the leading party, but it’s not clear what kind of coalition they will be joining to gain a majority.”  
“It’s probably bad news for the Kremlin,” said Knight. “There’s going to be more support for a stronger line taken against Moscow.”
Knight added that despite Ukraine’s economic problems, it’s important that a democratic process took place.
Given that Moscow has cut off most of the country’s gas supply, Ukraine faces another potential economic crisis as winter approaches. Russia says it acted because Ukraine failed to pay its energy debt. As a result, Kiev tried to buy Russian natural gas from European countries, but that prompted Russia to reduce its sales to those nations.
Petro went on to explain that there are now three main camps in Ukraine’s parliament that will have to determine which path the country should take. He says there’s a radical nationalist group of about 13 percent that includes the Freedom Party; a nationalist pragmatic group of about 40 percent with the largest party being the Popular Front; and a more pragmatic but nationalist bloc, led by President Petro Poroshenko and his party.
Knight says corruption is the biggest issue facing the new parliament.  
About 3 million people in the Luhansk and Donetsk region did not vote in the elections. The separatists plan to hold their own elections next month.
“We will have to see how these elections will be interpreted,” said Petro. “It is important for the peace process to continue to have some sort of popular mandate for the rebel-held areas, so that the people who claim to speak for the rebels can then engage in continued direct negotiations with the elected representatives of the Kiev government.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a five-day visit to the United States. After attending the U.N. General Assembly, he spoke to a sold-out crowd of more than 20,000 on Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York.

“India has a lot of opportunities,” he told a jubilant crowd. “I have recently launched an initiative. I invite the whole world and everyone sitting here. I invite everyone to participate in ‘Make in India.’” It’s a plan to make development and progress a popular movement.

Modi, who is trying to strengthen relations with the U.S., will be meeting President Barack Obama for talks in Washington. Ties between India and the U.S. haven’t always been smooth, but relations have warmed over the past couple of decades.

In the 1960s India initially took a neutral stance between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, becoming one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement. But in 1971, New Delhi signed the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union and moved away from Washington. 

There was a brief thaw in relations in the early 1990s after economic reforms by India meant to expand ties with the U.S., but that goodwill deteriorated after New Delhi announced a series of underground nuclear tests near the border with Pakistan, leading to economic sanctions from Washington.

After a private dinner with Obama on Monday, Modi plans to meet six American CEOs one on one, including Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein and General Electric’s Jeff Immelt.

But not everyone is a Modi fan. Four months after taking office, he remains a controversial figure. Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi spoke to protesters outside Madison Square Garden, who told him Modi should be treated like a criminal rather than a rock star.

Many people are upset over his handling of unrest in Gujarat state in 2002, when he was chief minister there. Anti-Muslim riots left more than 1,000 people dead, and Modi, a Hindu nationalist, was accused of doing little to stop the killing.

Also, he made controversial changes at the state level by diluting the powers of ministries and concentrating them in his office.

During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Thomas Drayton discussed U.S.-India relations with Michael Kugelman, a senior associate on Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., and with Anubhav Gupta, senior program officer at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“Both Prime Minister Modi and President Obama have an excellent opportunity to take a relationship that is already at a pretty good footing and really re-energize the relationship and take it forward for the next two years,” said Gupta.

More recently, the two nations have managed to find more common ground. They are now cooperating on defense matters, even though that necessitates a delicate balancing act for the U.S. as it tries to maintain ties with Pakistan. But in an attempt to counter India’s neighbor and rival Pakistan, Washington has given New Delhi more than $9 billion worth of defense equipment and security systems since 2001.

Kugelman says the relationship is critical from a security perspective.

“Despite all their differences and disagreements, India and the United States really see very similarly when it comes to terrorism and what to do about it.”

Kugelman said the U.S. and India feel similarly about the rise of China and its increasing clout. “I think the U.S. believes India can essentially serve as perhaps a counterbalance to China’s increasing presence and influence throughout the Asia region,” he said.

U.S.-Indian trade in goods and services is at nearly $150 billion per year. A recent study by the Confederation of Indian Industry shows that U.S. investment in India is at about $28 billion and that Indian companies have boosted employment in the U.S. by investing nearly $17 billion through 68 companies.

“This is a honeymoon period,” said Kugelman. “Modi is relatively new in power, there are still a lot of festering tensions, and we don’t really know what could happen. I think this is really meant to be symbolic more than anything else.”

After more than 300 years of being part of the United Kingdom, Scotland will decide this week on whether to become an independent nation. Until recently, the idea seemed far-fetched, but recent polls show that the yes campaign, in favor of breaking away, is gaining ground, leaving the pro- and anti-independence camps in a virtual tie.

If the yes vote wins, independence would take effect on March 24, 2016, giving the government 18 months to iron out the details for a new country. In a nation of just over 5 million people, anyone 16 years of age or older may vote. That does not include Scots living abroad or Scottish residents of England, Wales or Northern Ireland.

During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Randall Pinkston discussed the referendum with David Scheffer, a professor of international law at Northwestern University, and with Charles King, a professor of international affairs and government at Georgetown University.

“There are lots of pros and cons in this debate, but there are a lot of advantages for the Scottish people,” said Scheffer. “There’s a cultural advantage to resurrect their national identity. Also, the Scottish National Party and much of the Scottish parliament makes the argument that in the long run, Scotland will be better off economically by breaking ties with Westminster.”

The vote for secession, however, remains highly divisive. Last month, 130 business leaders published an open letter warning of the economic setbacks that would affect currency, taxes and pensions, among other issues if Scotland breaks from the U.K. The very next day, 200 other business leaders signed a letter in support of an independent Scotland.

Although many anti-secessionists say Scotland’s economy would suffer if it becomes independent, the Scottish government says it can use its oil resources — something England does not want to give up — to help grow its economy.

British Prime Minister David Cameron went to Scotland on Wednesday to make his case for unity, but the trip was short and involved mainly private events. Meanwhile, Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland, has ramped up his campaign, making door-to-door stops to garner support for independence.

For the United States, an independent Scotland would mean the breakup of one of its strongest allies, the United Kingdom. Traditionally the British government has stood with the U.S. on major foreign policy issues, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“This was a very unpopular move in Scotland itself,” said Scheffer of the Iraq War. “It did tend to incentivize voters to look at what Scotland would be like if it was not tied to some of the more controversial foreign policy decisions of the British government.”

Similarly, an independent Scotland would likely not participate in the current U.S. coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and would remove the British Trident nuclear submarine fleet from its territory, having set that as a condition for joining NATO, for which it would have to apply. Scotland’s status with the European Union would be unclear, but many assume it would have to apply for membership there, too, in the event of independence.

“Having Britain preoccupied with a basic constitutional domestic question takes attention away from these vital foreign policy concerns,” said King. “It is of vital concern to the United States.”

Scheffer agrees. “There are strategic reasons the status quo would be favorable to U.S. foreign policy,” he said. “But this is an expression of democratic will by the Scottish people, who have very strong ties to the United States. If it’s a yes vote, I think the United States should embrace that as an expression of democracy, and we already have one ally in the United Kingdom, and the end result should be that we have two allies.”

He explained that the difference between Scotland and the separatist movements of other countries is that the British government has sanctioned and legally approved this referendum.

“Even in the event of a no vote, I think the issue of Scottish independence is not going to go away,” said King. “And certainly the Scottish National Party is not going to go away.”

Thursday marks the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died, triggering the U.S.-led global war on terrorism as George W. Bush’s administration vowed to eradicate Al-Qaeda’s infrastructure for turning hijacked planes into weapons against the U.S. homeland.
Last week Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri announced that the group plans to extend its reach to the Indian subcontinent, including India’s Assam and Gujarat states, Kashmir, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Even before 2001, Al-Qaeda’s reach was global, making headlines for attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and on the USS Cole while it was in port in Yemen in two years later. After 2001, attacks included bombings in London, Madrid and Bali, Indonesia.
Much of Al-Qaeda’s infrastructure was destroyed by the U.S. and its allies in the years after 9/11, and the organization’s founder, Osama bin Laden, was killed by U.S. special forces in 2011. Now it faces stiff competition from the newly emerged Islamic State, a group that Al-Qaeda disowned in February of this year.
During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Thomas Drayton discussed the strength and status of Al-Qaeda in the world today with Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and with Manuel Gomez, a former FBI special agent and New York Police Department sergeant who now heads his own security company.
“Al-Qaeda is the second-most-important global jihadist group right now,” said Watts. “The Islamic State has taken the lead.” He added that personnel and money are the two biggest indicators of what makes such groups strong.
Gomez said that the Islamic State group is a big concern globally and that although Al-Qaeda “has been minimized since 9/11 in terms of resources, funding and the number of people that have been neutralized, arrested and killed in action, it is still the No. 1 domestic threat that U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies are concerned with.”
Gomez added that splinter groups of Al-Qaeda and U.S. citizens who travel abroad to join such groups are also of concern.
When it comes to Al-Qaeda’s strength, Watts said, it may be losing ground in Pakistan. Many of its fighters are joining the Islamic State, and that could be another reason for Zawahiri’s statement. 
Gomez said that since 2001, Al-Qaeda’s ideology has not changed but its mechanisms have. Watts said that Al-Qaeda’s recruiting tactics are still very much the same, using the Internet and the group’s affiliates, but that it is trying now to bring more Westerners into its ranks.
But access to these groups seems to be waning. “Across the world now we see fewer resources and sources of information on the jihadist groups,” said Watts. “That includes everything from journalists to actual intelligence assets, so everything is spread very thin.”
“They are getting stronger in the sense of who they’re recruiting — the quality of the recruitments, as opposed to the quantity,” said Gomez. “Islamic State has the quantity, by far. Al-Qaeda is recruiting more of the-next-big-hit type of individuals, as opposed to trying to gain more territory.”
Watts said that the United States has changed its approach. “We’re attacking networks now. We had looked at this 10 years ago in terms of regime change, building countries that will have democracies and that will thwart terrorism. That approach has been abandoned, large scale. What we see now is a more nimble approach using different sorts of methods in terms of special operations forces, drones and partner nations.”
Gomez said that the U.S. may not be able to eradicate these jihadist groups but has tried to keep them contained and away from U.S. soil and interests.

MASON, Michigan — It was a normal day for Iman Abu Aitah, a Palestinian student going to college in the United States. A rising junior, she had spent the month of Ramadan with her host family in Mason and was making plans to visit her relatives back in Gaza for the first time in two years. But as she did her routine Facebook check of the Gaza Now news feed, she knew something was off.

“I saw that the Ajrami family’s house was bombed in the Jabaliya refugee camp, where I live, so I called my family, but no one was answering,” she said, describing a neighbor's home. “Finally my sister answered and was crying. I couldn’t understand her.”

The news was the worst it could be. Abu Aitah’s parents had been killed, along with her two eldest brothers and a 4-year-old nephew. Suddenly, she was an orphan.

They died in the recent 50-day conflict between Hamas, which governs Gaza, and Israel, which recently invaded the territory, with the stated aim of preventing rockets from being fired and destroying the tunnel network being used to infiltrate border areas. As the conflict raged, more than 2,100 Gazans were killed and almost 11,000 others injured; 69 Israelis also died, most of them soldiers.

The conflict caught the attention of the world, but with the loss of Abu Aitah’s family, it suddenly struck in Mason too. This small city near Lansing is home away from home for Abu Aitah, where she spends all her vacations with her host mother.

Her situation has shocked the organization that brought her to the U.S. “Iman’s situation has affected all 40 students in our program,” said Nancy Qubain, director of the Hope Fund. “They’ve all been traumatized and concerned about their own families, and they’ve been very supportive of her.”

The Hope Fund coordinates working partnerships with American universities for Palestinian students living in Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. It is now creating a scholarship in honor of the Abu Aitah family members who were killed. “We will be there for her not just over the next few months but until she graduates,” said Qubain. “We’re hoping she will continue on to graduate school.”

Abu Aitah first arrived the U.S. as a high school student through the State Department’s Youth Exchange and Study program in 2010. It was the first time she had left the Gaza Strip. “It taught me so much about myself,” she said. “I learned that I can do anything.”

She said life is difficult in the Jabaliya refugee camp, in the North Gaza Governorate, even when there is no war. “The electricity comes on seven or eight hours,” she said. “It makes it difficult to get water because an electric motor is needed to supply each house. My family had to wake up really late at night or early in the morning to do normal chores like making bread or laundry, depending on when electricity is available. Many days there was no electricity at all.” Abu Aitah was one of nine children. Her father was a retired Arabic teacher.

She is majoring in literary studies and biology at Columbia College in South Carolina, a Methodist-affiliated women’s liberal arts college. “My expectation would be that Iman does not feel alone,” said Tracy Bender, a representative for the college. “As an institution, it is not a political thing. We are a community of people, and one of our own is suffering. This an opportunity for our community to show love and support for her, following this unspeakable and horrific incident.”

Abu Aitah has felt an outpouring of support. “I received emails from the college president and my professors,” she said. “They are all working hard to help me graduate in a year so I can go back to my family. I’m not going home without a degree.”

Faculty and alumni have established a fund for her. “This is certainly an opportunity for us as a community to learn about the issues and invite conversation,” Bender said.

Abu Aitah, through her grief, also sees it that way. “My hope is that Americans would understand what’s going on before taking sides,” she said. “I realized that people are just uninformed, so I’ve tried to simplify what’s going on for them. Many people think the conflict is a religious fight. Some of my classmates were surprised to know that there are Christian Palestinians.”

She has created a nonprofit organization, Youth for Change – Palestine. The goal is to empower young people in Gaza to build their own futures.

“When I was in second grade, I said goodbye to a friend after school. That night her house was bombed, and she died. For the longest time, I was traumatized and cried every time I heard an F-16,” said Abu Aitah. “Everyone deals with trauma in different ways, and I want to help these kids become leaders.”

Through her organization, she plans to engage youth in community service and help them build on their talents.

She says she’s doing her best to stay strong. “I have been living without my family for a while, so I’ve gotten used to that,” she said. “But I talked to mom every day, even if it was for only five minutes. It’s hard to think she won’t be there when I want to call her.”

Abu Aitah’s host mother in Michigan agreed it would be better for her to spend the rest of the summer with a Palestinian family in Minneapolis. From there, Abu Aitah plans to visit her sister — whose skull was fractured in the strike — at a hospital in Cairo.

But Egyptian authorities say her documents need review, since she holds a Palestinian passport that is up for renewal soon —  a process that could take weeks.