Witness

After her son was murdered by Mohamed Merah, Latifa Ibn Ziaten decided to fight for France's marginalised youth. On March 11, 2012, Imad Ibn Ziaten, an off-duty French soldier, was shot at point-blank range in a suburb of Toulouse in southwestern France. His killer was Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman who claimed allegiance to al-Qaeda and would go on to kill two more soldiers as well as three children and a teacher at a Jewish school. This is the story of Imad's mother Latifa: The story of a mother whose world fell apart, a mother who became an activist, a mother who chose to fight hatred with love.

A counting machine flips through a stack of bright pink-coloured paper money - bills destined for children at an elementary school in Taiwan. The notes are either passed out by teachers for a job well done, exchanged by children at a student-run grocery store, or - if the experiment is a success - carefully saved up and responsibly spent. The idea for this school bank experiment was conceived by Lai Hao-wei, an education specialist at Wenlin Elementary School in Taipei, who was tasked by the school's principle to teach students the value of money. Taiwanese are no strangers to the hardships of recession given their export-reliant economy which fluctuates according to global demand, and Lai himself knows what it is like to misspend and run into debt as a young adult. 'When I first entered the real world, I had no understanding of finance whatsoever. I spent everything I earned every month. I even had credit card debt once. It took me a long time to pay that off,' Lai remembers. Inspired by the popular board game, Monopoly, Lai hopes that his 'Wenlin dollars' can teach students how to better manage their finances and prepare them for adulthood. 'Students will be able to learn about earning and spending,' Lai says. 'The children can earn their own money and take full responsibility. By doing this, I believe they can really experience matters of finance.' Lai's first challenge is to get teachers on board, which is not easy at the traditional school. 'It's quite an old school which makes it difficult to change things,' he says. 'I have no idea whether this whole thing will work.' And as Lai gets the programme going he encounters some unexpected challenges. He has angered some members of the Parent-Teachers Association, who accuse him of violating Taiwan's Labor Standards Act by 'employing' children. But Lai pushes onward with the programme to prove that his 'Wenlin dollars' truly have value.

A community questions its Sami heritage when one of Scandinavia's largest known iron ore deposits is discovered nearby. Thirty kilometres from the Swedish world heritage site of Laponia, plans to introduce a controversial new iron ore mine in Gallok (also known as Kallak) are under way. The opinions of the 3,000 people living in the nearby town of Jokkmokk are polarised. Tor, a father of two, reclaims his Sami surname and joins a group of indigenous and environmental activists to stop British company Beowulf from mining on the ancestral lands of the indigenous Sami people.

One refugee family faces incredible odds and countless setbacks as they travel over 3,000km across Europe. The Nabi family set out on a more than 3,000km journey from Syria to Germany in hopes of reuniting with family there [Screengrab/Al Jazeera] "The regime was bombing us on a daily basis ... The hardest decision was to leave Aleppo, but I could see that my family needed me," recalls Guevara Nabi the weeks before fleeing war-torn Syria. Like thousands of Syrians, the Nabi family left everything they knew behind and set off on an over 3,000km journey in search of safety and asylum in Europe.

One man's quest to revive Russia's largest car company. Swedish manager, Bo Inge Andersson, meets all the job criteria, on paper, to run Russia's largest car manufacturing company. He worked previously for Saab and General Motors and successfully turned around another large Russian car manufacturing company, GAZ, from losses of $1bn to annual profits.

Pidia Joseph Allieu has made it his life's work to eradicate sexual violence in Sierra Leone. Although the precise figures are impossible to confirm, it's estimated that more than 200,000 women were the victims of gender-based violence during the country's devastating 1991-2002 civil war - and this legacy of abuse has endured. As a teacher at the Husband School, Pidia attempts to make fundamental changes in the arena where some of the worst crimes are committed - marriage. He leads classes for men in a rural area in eastern Sierra Leone, inviting them to share their views on the treatment of women and helping them to build a better understanding of the consequences of their attitudes and actions. For many of these men - some past retirement age - this is the first time they have been in a formal classroom situation, but once a week for six months they take a break from their work and voluntarily participate in the training sessions. The idea is to open their minds to the bigger picture and encourage them to embark on a different, more mutually respectful relationship with their wives. It is also not unusual for Pidia to be the first point of contact when a family reaches crisis point and acts of violence are committed. 'People trust me because my family have always lived in this neighbourhood; it's why they call me first rather than the police,' he says. But, as with many NGO projects in Sierra Leone, funding for the Husband School is inconsistent and Pidia goes months on end without payment. Nevertheless, Pidia is determined to continue his work, knowing that many families in the community rely on his support. 'I am not doing my job for money,' says Pidia. 'It's a passion. Because I know it's life-saving.'

In 2013, a fisherman in Gaza saw the shape of a man buried in shallow waters. He thought it was someone who had drowned. But upon closer inspection, it was a statue - one so heavy it capsized his boat and broke the tow ropes when he first tried to pull it up. Eventually he got it to shore, then home. Along the way, he realised he might have something valuable on his hands - something that needed to be hidden until he could figure out how to sell it. But just weeks after it was discovered the statue - which depicted Apollo, the god of arts, beauty and prophecy - vanished, causing all sorts of speculation.

In the rainforests of the Central African Republic (CAR) is Dzanga Bai, a remote clearing where a tall canopy of trees - full of the hum of insects and calls of wildlife - gives way to soft mud and pools of water. Here, some of the rainforests' largest mammals gather. Forest elephants - each with their own markings, scars, and personalities - bathe in mud, look after their young, search for mates, and play with each other. When an elephant comes to a river, he tests the bottom with every careful step. So the proverb says, 'You will always be safe if you follow the path of an elephant.' Zephirine Mbele, eco-guard On an observation platform nearby, Sessely Bernard, a tracker and elder of the Bayaka people, and Andrea Turkalo, an American field biologist, sit side-by-side, recording the elephants' behaviour. For 23 years Bernard and Turkalo have watched the elephants grow and can identify them by name. Sharing their platform is Zephirine Mbele, an eco-guard dedicated to protecting the animals from poachers. Uniting the three is their profound respect for the elephants: For Bernard, they are co-inhabitants of his homeland; for Turkalo, the focus of her research, and for Mbele, the subjects of his safekeeping. But in this quiet clearing the rumbling of conflict is not far away. Seleka rebel fighters, who have overthrown the government, are approaching Dzanga-Ndoki National Park and the elephants' home. In the coming days, Bernard, who knows the river stream where he was born, the medicinal use of plants underfoot, and the calls and cries of the elephants he tracks, hears an unwelcome sound tear across his home: Gunshots. Witness follows him and the others as they study and protect the elephants and who - when conflict strikes - must face the possibility of walking away.