Beyond the Headlines

As we look back on the year 2020 it is undeniable that there is one story that has defined the year. But beyond the coronavirus, what have been the defining stories from The National’s newsroom?  Iraq had a tumultuous year as it slid into economic despair after a year of anti-establishment protests. Lebanon sank deeper into economic crisis only to be hit with a blast that left a quarter of a million people homeless, two hundred dead and more than 6,000 injured. Ethiopia nearly came to blows over the Great Nile Dam, while fighting in the country’s Tigray region pushed the country to the brink of civil war. A brutal conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh killed more than 5,000 soldiers and 144 civilians on both sides. And then there was the simmering tension between Iran and the US, as well as, what was described as the most crucial election in America’s history.  On this week's Beyond the Headlines host Suhail Akram brings you the stories from some of our correspondents around the world about the defining moments of 2020.

On December 10, Azerbaijan held a triumphant military parade in its capital, Baku. Two-and-a-half months after the start of a conflict over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region in the west of the country, Azerbaijan had won a victory against the local ethnic Armenian forces, and their supporters in Yerevan. The Azerbaijan flag hung from balconies and shop windows, alongside that of the country’s principal ally, Turkey. On this week's Beyond the Headlines, Finbar Anderson looks at Azerbaijan’s apparently decisive victory In Nagorno-Karabakh, and the prospect for peace in a region that has seen decades of conflict.

It is three years since then Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi declared the gruelling battle against the most feared terror group in history was over. ISIS had been defeated. The conflict itself took three long years. The legacy left behind in the rubble of Mosul, the mass graves across Sinjar and the divided parliament in Baghdad will last a generation. In this week's Beyond the Headlines, host James Haines Young looks back at the time when the black flag of ISIS hung like a pall over Iraq and how its former rule has left a seemingly indelible mark on the country.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit - global trade ground to a halt. Around the world people were scrambling to buy essentials as supermarket shelves emptied. But the UAE, a country that relies on imports for more than 90% of its food supermarkets, appeared to have more than enough. The government repeatedly assured people there would be no shortages. This week, we hear from Maximo Torero Cullen, the chief economist of the Food and Agriculture Organisation at the UN, and Kyle Wagner, Head of Operations at Madar Farms, about how the UAE began preparing for a food crisis over a decade ago. We also hear from Nicole Rogers, founder and CEO of Agripocity, a UAE-based company that connects farmers directly to the international marketplace.

On August 7, Habib Daoud, a Lebanese professor of history in Iran, was gunned down on a street in northern Tehran. Killed alongside him was his 27-year-old daughter Maryam. The assassin was riding a motorbike, and escaped without being identified.   Reports suggest that Daoud’s killing was carried out by Israeli spies. It fits the profile of those carried out by Israeli agents in Iran in previous years. Past targets, however, were mainly Iranian nuclear scientists. Daoud was a different kind of enemy to Israel. He was said to be affiliated with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is funded by Iran. At least, that was the story reported by the Iranian press.   Thre months later, news reports in the United States and Saudi Arabia told a different story, in which the man Iranian authorities identified as Habib Daoud never actually existed. While the assassins were still likely to be Israeli agents, Daoud’s identity was a cover.   There is a strong likelihood, rather, that the man assassinated in Tehran that day was a senior operative in one of the world’s most notorious terrorist organisations – one that has long claimed to be an enemy of Iran’s government.   The man has been identified by US and Israeli officials as Abu Muhammad Al Masri, second-in-command of Al Qaeda.   On this week's Beyond the Headlines host Sulaiman Hakemy looks at Iran’s covert and counterintuitive relationship with Al Qaeda.

In 2019, Abiy Ahmed was riding high. For a year he had been Ethiopia’s prime minister, having emerged from byzantine internal jockeying at a time of deep unease and anger. He had ushered in a series of swift democratic reforms, seemingly bringing an end to decades of repression as he opened up the press and released political prisoners.  Then, the charismatic 43-year-old blew on to the international scene winning the Nobel Prize for reaching out to end the decades-long stalemate conflict with neighbouring Eritrea. He had solved an intractable situation once dubbed “No war, No peace.” But less than a year later, on November 17, the same people that awarded his peacemaking efforts with a Nobel prize released a statement expressing deep concern. The reason? Abiy was now at war at home against the province of Tigray, in Ethiopia’s north, sandwiched below Eritrea and next to Sudan. This week on Beyond the Headlines host James Haines Young looks at how Abiy Ahmed went from Nobel Peace Prize winner to the brink of civil war in Ethiopia.

For nearly four years, US President Donald Trump has torn up America’s foreign policy handbook. The implications, both at home and abroad, have been significant. Most recently, Trump’s administration was lauded for facilitating the Abraham Accord, the normalisation of relations between the UAE and Bahrain, and Israel. In exchange, Israel’s government has agreed to halt its proposed annexation of parts of the West Bank. But Trump’s days in the White House are now numbered. By the end of January 2021, a new administration will have taken the reins of American foreign policy.   This week on Beyond the Headlines, we hear from Sanam Vakil, Deputy Director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, and Dr Nasser Saidi, Lebanon’s former Minister of Economy and former vice governor of the Lebanese central bank, about what will change for the Middle East and what will remain the same when Joe Biden takes his seat in the Oval Office. Hosted by Sulaiman Hakemy

The Philippines is no stranger to storms. The country's group of islands weather around 20 storms and typhoons a year. But when news of supertyphoon Goni was announced, it took action, preparing itself as best it could under the restrictions of Covid-19. 390,000 people were evacuated from their homes as 2020’s strongest storm hit the archipelago on the November 1. The storm was the most powerful typhoon to make landfall on the islands since 2013, when Typhoon Haiyan killed at least 6,000 people. As Goni left a trail of devastation in the Philippines, another storm was brewing on the other side of the world. Hurricane Eta bore down on Nicaragua, damaging homes, tearing down power lines and causing flash flooding. 2020 has seen more storms from the Atlantic ocean than ever in recorded history. On this week's Beyond the Headlines, host Sulaiman Hakemy looks at why climate change means superstorms are the new normal.

In this special edition of Beyond the Headlines, Michael Goldfarb, author, journalist and host of the FRDH podcast based in the UK, talks to Joyce Karam, The National's correspondent in Washington, and James Reinl, The National's correspondent in New York, about what has happened so far in the US elections leading up to November 3. They examine the logistics of an election of this size in a pandemic, mass protests, mail-in ballots and what exactly Americans are voting on.

Arab-Americans make up a tiny fraction of America’s 300 plus million people. But in three key swing states: Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania they are a significant enough voting block that they could help determine the outcome of the November 3rd Presidential election. Willy Lowry and Sophie Tremblay takes us through the heart of Arab America to look at the issues important to the growing community and which way they’ll vote.