Beyond the Headlines

James Haines Young pieces together the explosion and the immediate aftermath. He talks to The National’s Sunniva Rose and Lina Mokadden, a resident in Lebanon, who explain what the explosion felt like and the aftermath. We also hear from Najat Aoun Saliba, Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the American University of Beirut, and Professor Andrew Tyas, an academic at the University of Sheffield specialising in blast and impact engineering, about the effects of the explosion. Mona Harb, a Professor of Urban Studies, tells us why Beirut didn't just lose lives, but also it's heritage. To watch the explosion, click here.

In this episode, we talk to Mohammed Mushfiq Uddin, a lead guide and scholar for a UK Hajj and Umrah operator, and Balquees Basalom, a social media journalist at The National, who is in Makkah about Hajj and how it will be different this year. We also speak to Dr. Adnan Al-Shareef, Professor of History and Islamic civilization at Umm Al Qurua University in Makkah. Also, Faridah Bint Bakti Yahra, tells us about how she was granted permission to perform Hajj. Dr Yusra Abdullah who volunteers every year during the Hajj explains her pain in missing a special moment.  This podcast is hosted by Suhail Akram.

This week, we talk to Vince Beiser, author of the book The World in a Grain of Sand and Arora Torres, fellow at the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) & Michigan State University about the global sand trade and shortage. Hosted by James Haines Young.

In July 2020, UAE’s Hope Probe will blast off from Japan to study Mars. This week, Mohsen Al Alwahdi, the Mission Systems Engineer at Dubai’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre tells host Suhail Rather what it took to get to this point and explains the journey the probe will take to the Red Planet. Historian Simon Ings and Sarwat Nasir, a senior reporter at The National, explain the significance of such a mission.

The United States of America is setting grim records. The number of daily cases of the coronavirus in the US are ahead of every other country in the world. It took the US over 3 months to reach 1 million Covid-19 cases on April  28, another 44 days until June 11 to reach to 2 million. Just 26 days after that, to pass 3 million on July 8. We talk to Amish Adalja, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center, and Ethan Fosse, an assistant professor in Sociology at The University of Toronto about why the US became the world’s epicentre of the coronavirus.   Hosted by James Haines Young

The Nile is Egypt and Egypt, for many, is the Nile. For over 8,000 years, this historic River has nurtured civilization. But now, Cairo says that’s under threat. Hundreds of kilometres upstream, Ethiopia has built a mega dam. It stands over 155 metres tall and nearly 1800 meters long.    Host James Haines-Young talks to Hamza Hendawi, The National’s Cairo correspondent, and William Davison, a senior analyst based in Ethiopia for Crisis Group. We also speak to Hafsa Halawa, a non resident scholar at the Middle East Institute about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. SFX Provided by: MarcMatthewsMusic (https://freesound.org/people/MarcMatthewsMusic/sounds/420554/) ES335-001 (https://freesound.org/people/ES335-001/sounds/442725/) wjoojoo (https://freesound.org/people/wjoojoo/sounds/472818/) gerainsan (https://freesound.org/people/gerainsan/sounds/345926/)

On the 1st of October 2019 mass protests spread through Iraq. People demanded an end to widespread corruption and access to basic services, like water and electricity and access to jobs. Within days hundreds of protesters were injured and there were dozens of fatalities… Then the information halted - the Iraqi government had imposed a near blackout of the internet.  Iraq is not alone. Some 33 countries have tried to shut down or throttle the internet in 2019 alone. India was a leader in the practice with 121 shutdowns that year. With a global pandemic raging, limiting access to the internet can have real health consequences. Should access to the internet be a human right? This week we speak to Berhan Taye, senior policy analyst at Access Now and Dr Merten Reglitz, lecturer in global ethics at Birmingham University. This podcast is hosted by Taylor Heyman.

In Beirut, a white saloon car comes to a swift halt outside the Ethiopian Embassy in the south west of the city. A woman climbs out, and the car speeds off. The Ethiopian woman is one of many domestic workers being abandoned by their employers. Lebanon is in an economic crisis. There are over 250,000 foreign domestic workers in Lebanon with Ethiopians being by far the largest nationality. Employers say they can no longer afford to pay their domestic help, nor can they afford to buy the women a flight back to their home country. On top of that, there is now a quarantine charge for the women when they land in Ethiopia. On this week's Beyond the Headlines we look at why dozens of domestic workers being abandoned in Lebanon and who will help them?

On the evening of May 25th, George Floyd Jr walked into a shop in Minneapolis and tried to use a $20 note. Within half an hour, his limp body was loaded into an ambulance. What happened in between has been viewed across social media platforms, and news channels around the world, millions of times.  On this week's Beyond the Headlines, Archer Hill, social media journalist at The National looks at how phone cameras, and social media, have affected racial progress in the US, and globally. We speak to Nicol Turner Lee, Senior Fellow at the Center for Technology Innovation at The Brookings Institution about the way videos and telecommunications have progressed from the civil rights movement to George Floyd and what lies ahead.

The Coronavirus has spread around the world … infecting millions of people in nearly every country. As doctors and scientists race to discover a vaccine, prevention measures are promoted. It’s agreed that wearing face masks, social distancing, washing hands frequently and good hygiene are the best defence against coronavirus. But in the world’s refugee camps these measures are nearly impossible to enforce. This week, host Willy Lowry talks to Athena Rayburn, Save the Children's head of advocacy, and Sally Thomas, Deputy Head of Medecins San Frontiere - Syria, about the threat of coronavirus in the world’s refugee camps.