Magazine

People across the United Kingdom are waiting to see will be the country's next prime minister – but the overwhelming majority of the population will not have a choice on who it will be.

Conservative MPs Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt are the last individuals standing in a race to become the next leader of the party and succeed current prime minister Theresa May. There will be no general election as May called a snap election in 2017, one in which the Conservatives lost parliamentary seats.

The UK is now is in a situation where an estimated 160,000 rank and file members of the Conservative Party will choose who becomes prime minister of a government that does not hold a majority of seats in parliament and which is tumbling in opinion polls.

No matter who wins, critics say the lack of power that the general public has in choosing the next prime minister is a major brake on democracy. All the while, the October 31 deadline for the UK to leave the European Union – deal or no-deal – looms ever nearer.

We'll take a look at the two men battling for the top seat in UK government and consider what an unprecedented democratic deficit means for the country as it considers its future role in Europe. Join the conversation.

When is an air crash a planned suicide mission and when is it the result of a disastrous technical fault?

On the morning of October 31, 1999, the EgyptAir Flight 990, a Boeing 767, left John F Kennedy (JFK) International Airport for Cairo.

Soon after take-off, it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 217 passengers. Nearly two decades on, the question that still has not been convincingly answered is 'why'?.

The initial US investigation blamed the co-pilot and concluded the crash was "as a result of the relief first officer's flight control inputs", adding that the reason for his actions "was not determined".

But today the evidence behind this conclusion looks far from convincing, as this Al Jazeera World investigation exposes.

In 1999, the Egyptian government handed over the task of investigating the crash to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the United States, a Washington-based organisation charged with investigating transportation accidents, including air crashes.

Philip Riddell, an aerospace engineer and pilot with more than 50 years of experience, told Al Jazeera that the NTSB investigation was problematic.

"I thought the NTSB report was flawed in a number of areas. They kind of jumped on the conclusion that the handling pilot was mishandling the aircraft with a finger pointed at suicide," Riddell said, adding that the agency may have "neglected to look at other relevant evidence that was found".

The crash happened at a time of growing apprehension in the US about so-called "terrorism" and the appointed US investigation firmly concluded the co-pilot was responsible for bringing the plane down.

That conclusion was based on audio on the Cockpit Voice Recorder, where the relief First Officer, Gameel al-Batouti, is heard calling on God as he tries to correct the 767 from its sudden sharp descent. The NTSB investigation interpreted this as the final prayer of a man intent on suicide and mass murder, rather than a man begging for divine intervention to save the aircraft.

While the NTSB refused to speak to Al Jazeera, its chairman at the time of the accident, Jim Hall, agreed to be interviewed for this documentary.

"We were asked to take this investigation to begin with. We did it … and a good job was done by the investigators. The NTSB has a worldwide reputation for factual investigations and where we have problems with staff in terms of workload, we just extend the time for the investigation," Hall said.

Egypt issued a furious rebuttal of the US report and the FBI and other US agencies also later cast doubt on its conclusions. Over the years these doubts persisted - but it was only some 14 years later, in 2014, when the US aviation authorities demanded a technical change to all Boeing 767s, that these suspicions ramped up.

Al Jazeera's Neil Cairns conducted an in-depth examination of inconsistencies within the NTSB report -  starting with evidence of technical problems reported with the same Boeing 767 plane that had emerged the day before the crash.

In 2000, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued airworthiness directives for urgent relevant checks to be made on all 767s. It took another 14 years for the FAA to issue fresh directives which pointed to a technical problem with this model of aircraft.

After the 2014 directives, Boeing made changes to its own systems.

"Consequently Boeing actually bought out a completely new system to replace the bellcrank system," Riddell explained.

American accident investigator Pat Diggins makes a key point about the influence of manufacturers on federal agencies.

"The manufacturer, the larger it is, the larger the arms and the reaches are to it. I mean … if you look at Boeing, look at how far-reaching their capabilities are to … They have more government solicitors in Washington DC that help them get their products approved. The majority of their company sells to the United States government," said Diggins.

The Boeing 737 Max 8 jet crashes in Jakarta in 2018 and Addis Ababa in 2019 have resulted in investigations into this model of aircraft. Boeing has already conceded mistakes were made in launching this model. But there have been no such concessions from anyone regarding Flight 990, and after nearly 20 years, there is no resolution for the bereaved families, not least that of First Officer Gameel al-Batouti.

Japan has resumed commercial whaling in its waters despite global outrage.

Whales were hunted to the brink of extinction until 1986, when a group of countries agreed to temporarily stop whaling for profit.

It turned into a semi-international ban.

But Conservationists are now worried the species might be facing a similar threat.

Many countries continue to hunt whales for 'scientific' purposes.

And Japan, which is one of the leading commercial whalers - has now resumed the practice in its waters.

But is it commercially sustainable?

And why is whaling so important for Japan?

It’s a drug route far from international headlines, but its increased use is creating a "David and Goliath"-like problem for police in several Pacific nations, especially Fiji. The island nation lies right at the heart of drug trafficking routes that have seen a remarkable surge in traffic.

Ships laden with methamphetamine and cocaine set sail from North and South America, headed to the South Pacific to feed Australia and New Zealand’s drug markets. Hundreds of kilograms of drugs have reportedly ended up on the shores of Fiji and a secondary market has been created, leaving inexperienced law enforcement ill-equipped to contain new and growing threats created by addiction and violence.

The lure of the drugs business in Fiji has drawn some fisherman away from their trades, and without proper rehabilitation facilities, government agencies admit they are effectively “two steps behind” the drug gangs.

In this episode, The Stream looks at how countries like Fiji have become critical stops along drug trafficking routes, and asks what can be done to address the problem.

Several people have been killed and hundreds more injured since Sunday's protest organisers called a 'million-man march'.

It was the biggest protest Sudan had seen since its military junta violently broke up a sit-in in Khartoum nearly a month ago.

Tens of thousands of people protested on Sunday, once again calling on the military to hand over power to civilians.

Several people were killed and hundreds more injured.

The military Council and the opposition have failed to reach an agreement over who should be in charge.

Ethiopia and the African Union are working to bring them to the negotiating table, as Sudan's military now says, it's ready to resume talks.

But are Sudan's generals prepared to share power?

The United Arab Emirates is accused of supplying fighters trying to seize Tripoli with anti-tank missiles made in the United States.

It’s a question being asked by Libya's internationally-recognised government in Tripoli.

And in Washington too.

How did US made anti-tank missiles sold to the United Arab Emirates end up on the battlefield in Libya?

The Libyan army, supporting the UN-recognised government, says boxes of the weapons, stamped with UAE logos, were found in Gharyan.

Troops recaptured the city on Wednesday, three months after warlord Khalifa Haftar took control there, using it as a springboard for his campaign to seize the capital.

Haftar has the support of regional powers, including Saudi Arabia and the Emiratis.

The weapons find raises questions about whether the UAE is violating internationally recognised US arms sales agreements as well as the UN arms embargo on Libya.

On Inside Story, an in-depth discussion on how regional players are propping up their proxies in the ongoing war in Libya.

Japan's Prime Minister says consensus has been reached on some issues at the G20 summit in Osaka.

The world's seven biggest economies, the G7, mushroomed into the G20 following the Asian financial crisis in 1999.

The G20 summit is the world's largest annual gathering of world leaders, second only to the United Nations General Assembly.

This year's G20 in Japan had a different emphasis.

Leaders focussed on cooperation among themselves to solve problems, rather than the summit's usual themes of sustainable growth, health and innovation.

The threat of war between the United States concentrated minds in Osaka.

So did the trade war between the world's two largest economies the US and China.

The closing remarks of some leaders could signal breakthroughs in major issues.

But in an increasingly divided world, can global powers find common ground?

If so how?

Britain's media are front and centre in Boris Johnson's bid to become Conservative Party leader and prime minister. Plus, nostalgia in Iranian diaspora media.

Boris Johnson and the UK media
Boris Johnson, the odds-on favourite to become Britain's next prime minister, had one distinct advantage going into the race to succeed Theresa May: name recognition.

When the UK media drop that name - Boris - Britons know who exactly they're talking about. As it happens, the news business is where Johnson got his start. As a correspondent in Brussels in the 1990s, Johnson produced a slew of Eurosceptic stories that readers found amusing; stories that could well have sowed seeds in peoples' minds for an eventual Brexit.

Fast forward 30 odd years, and there he was as a key asset on the Leave side in the 2016 referendum campaign saying the same kinds of things about the EU as a politician that he once did as a journalist.

These days, the British media finally seem to have clued in to the fact that entertainment value isn't everything: that Boris Johnson falls dangerously short of the qualifications for the job.

But he already has one foot in the door of 10 Downing Street, so this media awakening is looking like too little, too late.

Leaders of the world's wealthiest economies are in Japan to discuss the biggest challenges to global free trade.

The group of 20 summit, or G20, has been held every year for the past two decades.

This year's summit in Osaka is supposed to unite leaders around issues such as free trade and climate change.

But political tensions and the trade war between the U.S. and China are creating divisions.

Can the participants find consensus? And how relevent is this meeting for the rest of the world?

Iranian president calls new US sanctions against Tehran 'idiotic and dangerous.'

'The White House has lost its mind.'

That's how Iran's president Hassan Rouhani described the latest round of US sanctions against his country.

The new measures target Iran's Supreme Leader and his military chiefs, denying them access to financial resources.

The sanctions are designed to punish Tehran for what the US calls its destabilising activities in the Middle East, and prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.

But Iranian leaders say Washington has closed the door on diplomacy.

So, do sanctions work? And what's needed to break this cycle of escalating rhetoric between the two sides?