On August 5th, Iran inaugurated a new president putting an end to the 8-year presidency of reformist Hassan Rouhani and ushered in a new, hard-line government. The new president, Ebrahim Raisi is said to be handpicked by the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, the man who controls Iran's religious ideology and political ideology. Mr Raisi is a hard-line cleric who won his election amid accusations of corruption and historically low voter turnout. The new president had vowed in his campaign to continue ...
Aug 11, 2021•17 min•Ep. 223
In the final episode, we follow the volunteers who took to the shattered streets of Beirut in the hours and days after the explosion of August 4, 2020. Host Finbar Anderson delves into the ongoing investigation into the blast and asks: will it ever bring justice to the city’s people?
Aug 05, 2021•38 min•Ep. 222
In Episode 3 of The Blast, The National’s Finbar Anderson recounts the day of the explosion. As The fire in Warehouse 12 grows in intensity, a fire crew arrives to try to tackle the blaze, but it’s like nothing they’ve ever seen before. They call for backup. Ghassan Hasrouty and his colleagues are still working in the silos next door, offloading grain from the ship that docked earlier in the day. They’re just metres from Warehouse 12, and the deadly stash of explosives inside it. Bystanders livi...
Aug 04, 2021•27 min•Ep. 221
In Episode 2 of The Blast, The National’s Finbar Anderson and Sunniva Rose head down to the docks of Beirut port. They try to piece together what was happening in the six years the ammonium nitrate sat in a warehouse and how it led to the huge explosion.
Aug 03, 2021•31 min•Ep. 220
On August 4, 2020 the heart of Beirut was ripped apart by a huge explosion caused by 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate detonating at the city’s port. The National’s Finbar Anderson was one of the thousands injured in the blast – hit by flying shards of glass in his own living room. In The Blast podcast he has traced the events of how that tragic day came to pass. In Episode 1 Finbar speaks to Boris Prokoshev, the captain of the ship that first brought the ammonium nitrate into Beirut port. Boris ...
Aug 02, 2021•27 min•Ep. 219
On August 4, 2020 the heart of Beirut was ripped apart by a huge explosion caused by 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate detonating at the city’s port. The National’s Finbar Anderson was one of the thousands injured in the blast – hit by flying shards of glass in his own living room. In a four-part mini-series one year later, he has traced the events of how that tragic day came to pass. Beginning with how the ammonium nitrate ended up in Lebanon, Finbar speaks to the officials who knew it sat at th...
Aug 01, 2021•29 sec•Ep. 218
An IT technician facing the sack for discussing voting habits at work or parents barred from home schooling their children. It sounds pretty dystopian, but activists say a new French law may bring these restrictions into reality. Supporters of the anti-separatism bill say it will reinforce France’s commitment to secularism. But those opposing it say the legislation erodes civil liberties, religious freedoms and unfairly targets the Muslim community. Last week the bill was passed into law. On thi...
Jul 29, 2021•23 min•Ep. 217
Every year in Saudi Arabia, as the time of the pilgrimage to Makkah nears, thousands of people from the city and around the country gather to volunteer for Hajj. Often these people will give up their daily lives and work to take time out to help those who visit the holy sites. As Muslims flock to the city to complete one of the essential requirements of their faith, a taskforce of thousands of Saudis is deployed to see to their needs. On this week’s Beyond the Headlines, host Ayesha Khan looks a...
Jul 20, 2021•14 min•Ep. 216
Iraq’s summer is crippling the country. People are having to seek refuge indoors to escape scorching temperatures that regularly reach 50°C. But indoors isn’t much better with regular power blackouts adding to people’s frustrations. So, aside from shade within the four walls of their houses, there is little else that Iraqis can do to cool themselves down. Electricity in the country is scant, and what little there is, is rationed into limited time slots each day. On this week's Beyond the Headlin...
Jul 15, 2021•24 min•Ep. 215
On July 9, 2011, when South Sudan finally became independent after a 56-year struggle and a bitter secession from Sudan, it was a dream come true for many. Roughly the size of the United Kingdom and Germany combined, the new country had its own passport, as well as football and basketball teams singing a national anthem under their own flag. One of the most diverse nations in Africa, with more than 60 languages and dozens of ethnic groups, the creation of South Sudan was hailed as a way out of d...
Jul 08, 2021•17 min
On June 28, Ethiopia’s federal government declared a ceasefire in Tigray. Mekelle, the capital of the restive region, sprang to life as thousands flooded the streets chanting and dancing, many draped in Tigrayan flags. The announcement was supposed to end eight months of war which has left at least 7,500 people dead. Hundreds of thousands more have been forced to flee their homes in the fighting between government troops, their allies and Tigrayan rebels. But shortly after the ceasefire declarat...
Jul 01, 2021•20 min
With one hundred days to go before Expo 2020 opens its gates, the grounds are buzzing. The site is bigger than 600 football fields. And there are twenty thousand workers busy building, welding and adding the final touches ahead of the grand opening on October 1. The event, running over six months, will be one of the most ambitious ever held. This week's host Nilanjana Gupta takes a look behind the scenes of Expo 2020 Dubai.
Jun 23, 2021•22 min
Like millions in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a football fan. Before he became the country’s leader, he was a semi-professional player. He publicly backs a small Istanbul team - which won the country’s super league in 2020 - and was the best man at the wedding of Mesut Özil, the German national team footballer who is of Turkish heritage. Mr Erdogan’s love of the game and his close ties to certain clubs and the national team is wrankling with some fans who say the president is politi...
Jun 17, 2021•22 min
Over 13 years, the US spent at least $21.7 billion training and equipping the Iraqi army, police and counter-terror forces. Then, in the space of a few days in the summer of 2014. it all collapsed. As thousands of ISIS fighters poured over the border from Syria, as many as 90,000 soldiers and police deserted their posts. The terror group seized major cities in a matter of hours. Within days, they were charging towards the capital of Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdish capital of Erbil. The b...
Jun 10, 2021•26 min
As coronavirus has spread across continents, our way of life has completely changed. Planes have ground to a halt, borders closed off and families separated. But now, as vaccination programmes surge ahead, the aviation industry is working with governments to try to secure safe and efficient ways to travel. A digital proof of one’s vaccination status, a vaccine passport, is being welcomed as the key to reigniting the travel sector - a way to ensure all those travelling can verify their Covid stat...
Jun 03, 2021•19 min
For 11 days rockets rained down on Gaza in the latest escalation of a conflict that has gone on for nearly three quarters of a century. More than 250 people were killed as homes were destroyed and livelihoods shattered. But the battle wasn’t only taking place over Gaza and Israel; online a separate but connected fight broke out freedom of expression. Palestinians turned to social media in the hope of bringing attention to the mounting death toll in Gaza. In East Jerusalem, families facing evicti...
May 27, 2021•19 min
What started with a court hearing over the ownership of land on the outskirts of Jerusalem’s Old City has escalated into the bloodiest round of fighting between Hamas in Gaza and the Israeli military since 2014. The outbreak of fighting between the armed groups in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and Israel killed hundreds, mostly Palestinians but also people in Israel. It came after months of simmering tensions, over the court cases to decide the fate of a dozen Palestinian families in the Sheik...
May 20, 2021•24 min
On April 19, Nasa’s Ingenuity helicopter lifted off from the surface of Mars in a history-making first flight. The small, drone-like rotorcraft, which arrived on the Red Planet attached to the Perseverance rover, climbed three metres into the thin air, hovering for 30 seconds before touching back down in the Jezero crater. It was the first controlled flight by a powered aircraft on another planet. Another groundbreaking first for science followed a day after. A gold device about the size of a ca...
May 13, 2021•21 min
Within months of the emergence of coronavirus in late 2019 drug companies around the world were racing for a vaccine. Within a year, shots were being delivered into people’s arms. The speed at which the world developed not one but several different Covid-19 vaccines in seemingly record time has thrown into sharp relief other vaccine programmes that have toiled for years with no final breakthrough. HIV, the virus that causes Aids, kills nearly 700,000 every year, but has outwitted vaccine develop...
May 06, 2021•22 min
India hit what it thought was its peak of Covid-19 infections in September 2020 when the pandemic then started to ease. But the country now has the world’s second highest number of Covid-19 cases, surpassing Brazil, and is now only behind the United States. The new, deadly explosion has overwhelmed India’s hospitals, graveyards and crematoriums, particularly in its biggest cities of Delhi and Mumbai. On this week's Beyond the Headlines host Suhail Akram speaks to those affected by the crisis to ...
Apr 29, 2021•28 min
Desalination used to be the preserve of money-rich but water-poor Middle Eastern countries. It was expensive and caused pollution but in the arid desert where rain is scarce, there was little choice. Without desalination, taps across the Gulf would run dry and farms would wither and die. Experts have issued warnings about the water wars of the future as one of the world’s most precious resources begins to dry up. This week on Beyond the Headlines, host James Haines-Young looks at how Saudi Arabi...
Apr 22, 2021•19 min•Season 1Ep. 12
On December 31, 2020, one year after coronavirus was first detected, the World Health Organisation gave the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine emergency validation, making it the first to be given such clearance. It was just seven months after the first trials began – a record breaking length of time. Other vaccines followed. AstraZeneca, Moderna, Sinopharm, Sputnik V and Johnson & Johnson are now common names for a range of jabs that are being deployed in different regions of the world. Hundreds of mi...
Apr 15, 2021•22 min
The AstraZeneca vaccine was heralded as ‘the vaccine for the world’ when it was first approved for use in the UK on December 30. It is inexpensive and can be stored in normal fridges, unlike other vaccines. But its image has been marred by recent controversies. This week on Beyond the Headlines, host Suhail Akram delves into the benefits and the risks of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
Apr 08, 2021•23 min
For nearly a week, the ultra-large Ever Given container ship was wedged across the Suez Canal, stopping dead all trade through one of the world’s most vital shipping lanes. With no way through, hundreds of ships queued up in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean and waited. Within 48 hours of the Ever Given running aground on March 23, there was enough oil on tankers waiting at the entrance to the Suez to power the UK for a fortnight. Nearly $10 billion dollars worth of trade a day sat idle. This we...
Mar 31, 2021•19 min
Iraq is listed as the 20th most corrupt country in the world in the latest ranking by anti-corruption organisation Transparency International. Venality is rampant in a country still emerging from the shadows of multiple wars, terrorism and long-time sanctions. One aspect of this is the widespread practice of government jobs for bribes. Despite laws that criminalise both the briber and the bribe-taker, fresh graduates desperate for jobs say they have no other option. Since 2003, job creation has ...
Mar 25, 2021•18 min
March 2013, Raqqa. The Syrian revolution is in full swing. A crowd gathers around a statue of Hafez Al Assad in the centre of the city. The statue is of President Bashar Al Assad’s father, and much like the Assad regime has looked over this part of Syria for five decades. Though not for much longer. Activists and members of the Free Syrian Army chant Allahu Akbar, and fire at the statue as it is pulled down. The relic lies on its side, they climb on top of it - Raqqa is now the first provincial ...
Mar 18, 2021•15 min
It's hard to overstate just how significant Pope Francis's visit to Iraq really was. Nor how remarkable it is that it actually went ahead. Iraq, despite the best efforts of the security forces, is not stable. Just days before the Pope arrived on March 5, a US civilian contractor was killed in a rocket attack, probably the work of an Iran-backed militia. Pope Francis’s predecessor Benedict said days before the pontiff left the Vatican that the trip was dangerous. And yet, it went ahead. And it di...
Mar 08, 2021•28 min
It was beyond our capacity of understanding ten years ago when a young man in Tunisia decided to take his own life by setting himself on fire. This act was enough to start large-scale protests in what became known as the Arab uprisings. Two months ago, in the impoverished city of Kasserine, a desperate and jobless man in his twenties set himself on fire in west-central Tunisia. He narrowly escaped death. Local media reported that he was in his twenties and was struggling through tough economic t...
Mar 04, 2021•16 min
On February 21 about 120,000 Indian farmers gathered at a grain market in Punjab to protest against the government. The crowds of men and women arrived early, making their way to the market in tractors, buses, trailers and cars. They waved flags and vowed to head south to the capital of New Delhi to make their voices heard. Waiting for them in Delhi were tens of thousands more farmers who had been camping near the highways leading into the capital for months. On this week's Beyond the Headlines,...
Feb 25, 2021•18 min
At the beginning of 2020 the UAE faced a conundrum. Abu Dhabi Ports was seeking to boost its cargo-handling capacity, which meant more construction above and below water. A new project with Etihad Rail was also planned to connect Khalifa Port with the proposed national railway that would run through the country. But the Abu Dhabi shoreline is home to the Ras Ghanada reef, consisting of 8 million corals, of which 500 would be under threat from the proposed works. In this week's Beyond the Headlin...
Feb 18, 2021•20 min
