Egyptian author Tarek Osman uncovers the history of the modern Arab world by tracing some of the great political dreams that have shaped it, from the nineteenth century to the Arab Spring. Throughout the series, he focuses on two countries that are currently high on the news agenda: Egypt and Syria. As Tarek discovers, these are also the states from which many of the crucial characters and ideas in this story emerged. In this final programme, he examines the build up to the Arab Spring as two worlds collide. As the previous experiments with liberalism, nationalism and islamism founder the region's presidential hard men seek to consolidate their power by passing it onto their sons. At the same time, riding the wave of a population explosion which leaves two thirds of the Arab world under 25 years old, a new generation frustrated by the lack of jobs or political freedoms rises up to challenge the old order.

"ABC News Great TV News Stories Muammar Qaddafi: Libya's Radical Ruler" "A documentary of the Libyan leader who seized power in 1969 at the age of 27, and who 20 years later is called "the most dangerous man alive" and "the world's number one terrorist."" Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (Arabic: مُعمّر محمد عبد السلام القذّافي, c. 1942 – 20 October 2011) was a Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the de facto leader of Libya from 1969 to 2011, first as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the "Brotherly Leader" of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011. Initially ideologically committed to Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, he later ruled according to his own Third International Theory. A highly divisive figure, Gaddafi dominated Libya's politics for four decades and was the subject of a pervasive cult of personality. He was decorated with various awards and praised for his anti-imperialist stance, support for Arab—and then African—unity, as well as for significant development to the country following the discovery of oil reserves. He was condemned by many as a dictator whose authoritarian administration systematically violated human rights and financed global terrorism in the region and abroad. The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. ABC launched as a radio network in 1943, as the successor to the NBC Blue Network, which had been purchased by Edward J. Noble. It extended its operations to television in 1948, following in the footsteps of established broadcast networks CBS and NBC. It is the youngest of the American Big Three television networks. The network is sometimes referred to as the Alphabet Network, as its initialism also represents the first three letters of the English alphabet, in order.