The Take

Five years of civil war, cholera, and starvation have devastated Yemen while Saudi-led blockades and bombing campaigns have left its healthcare system almost useless. Now, Yemen faces a new challenge — a global pandemic, right when crucial aid to the country is starting to dry up. How bad could things get in Yemen?

Each time someone leaves their home in Baltimore, Maryland, their every move could be recorded from above. The city with one of the highest murder rates in the US has launched the Aerial Investigation Research surveillance program. Critics say it represents a frightening erosion of people's right to privacy.

Anthropologist David Graeber wrote the book on “Bull**** Jobs,” and he joins The Take to talk about what makes work essential, and what makes it pointless. The pandemic has sparked conversations about undervaluing essential workers, especially as pressure grows to “get the economy going again”. In this episode, Graeber asks what we really mean when we talk about “the economy,” and who it benefits.

Defund, reform or abolish police departments — that's the growing call among US protesters. Already, the idea is taking hold, as the Minneapolis City Council pledged to dismantle its police department this week. Why is this movement gaining traction? We go to Minneapolis to find out.

Mexico is reopening its economy after it implemented measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But the numbers of bodies piling up in morgues and crematoriums in the capital don't seem to match the numbers that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says are helping to flatten the curve.

Protesters across hundreds of US cities are defying curfews and risking arrest to protest against police brutality. We've seen demonstrations like this before, but this year's wave feels different. To understand why, we speak with author and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib. We also speak with a woman in Washington, DC who unexpectedly faced the police at her doorstep this week.

As demonstrations continue in the US, The Take is revisiting protests that took place a year ago in Khartoum, Sudan. One hundred people were reported killed on Massacre Monday, and it is impossible for a lot of Sudanese to forget — including Hiba Morgan, Al Jazeera's correspondent there. As her friends feared for their lives, she, along with the rest of the Al Jazeera team, were barred from reporting.

When coronavirus hit the cruise industry, many passengers were allowed to disembark and were repatriated to their home countries. But as of mid May, about 100,000 crew members were still at sea, trying to get home. We speak with one crew member who was able to go home, and with many who are still stuck on board.

Rural Chileans can barely wash their hands, but the avocados nearby are thriving. The country has been battling a mega drought for over a decade, and rivers and reservoirs in Chile have dried to dust. In this episode, we're asking who has access to water, who doesn't, and how hard that is to change during the coronavirus outbreak.

The pandemic has disrupted education for nearly 1.3 billion students worldwide. The dominant alternative model for education has been tethered to internet access and broadcast stations. But what happens to children who live in households without access to technology or an internet connection? We're going to Kenya to find out.

As foreign-born doctors in the US are fighting to keep COVID-19 patients alive, deportation is also a lingering fear. Meanwhile, doctors of color in the UK's National Health Service are the first to die from the novel coronavirus disease. We speak to journalists in the US and UK on the hardships that non-white doctors are facing.

Imagine a living, flying cloud of voracious grasshoppers so dense that it blocks out the sun. That's the scene in East Africa and parts of Asia as swarms of desert locusts are destroying crops — and if left unchecked, the pests could multiply 500 times over by June, leaving millions facing severe food insecurity.

Mexico’s drug war has left tens of thousands of casualties in secret graves. About 60,000 people have disappeared since 2006. While defying the threats of gangs and criminal organizations, the mothers of the missing are now searching for their relatives, no longer waiting for the government to fulfill promises.

For the Sámi indigenous people, the year begins in spring when the reindeer calves are born. Nature guides how they live their lives, but they can't read nature like they used to. A warming planet is threatening their way of life in northern Sweden, and efforts to save their land and the reindeer are reigniting old tensions with the Swedish government.

For millions of India's migrant workers, walking hundreds of kilometers to find a safe haven is the only option during the country's 21-day lockdown. But on the journey, out-of-work daily-wage earners are facing starvation and harassment from police. As the country continues to grapple with an ill-equipped health care system, the coronavirus crisis has further revealed India's systemic class issues.