Beyond the Headlines

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 times. But the horrifying act almost went unnoticed in Tunisia. On this week's Beyond The Headlines, host Ahmed Maher looks at why Tunisian society is becoming numb to the increasing number of stories of self immolation.

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, host Taylor Heyman looks at why India’s farmers have been moved to launch these protests.

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 Headlines host Suhail Akram looks at how the UAE moved an entire coral reef.

On February 9, 2021, after seven months in space and six years since the mission's inception, a room full of Emirati engineers watched anxiously as their attempt to put a satellite into orbit around Mars reached its final destination. The UAE is just the fifth nation to send a spacecraft to the Red Planet. In this episode, we hear from Omar Adbelrahman Hussain, lead mission design and navigation engineer for the Emirates Mars mission, Hamad Alhazami, command controller of the Hope probe, and Mohsen Al Awahdi, mission systems engineer for the probe. We also talk to Sarwat Nasir, who watched the orbit attempt at a special event held in Dubai. Hosted by Suhail Akram.

During his 2015 presidential primary race, a day after the San Bernadino shootings in which a married Islamist couple shot and killed 14 people, Donald Trump said he wanted “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on”. In 2017, when Trump came to power, the so-called “Muslim Ban” was introduced. Trump signed an executive order banning the nationals of 7 predominantly Muslim countries from entering the USA for 90 day. All Syrian refugees were banned indefinitely and all other refugees were banned for 120 days. Although the ban hit some constitutional hurdles a slightly watered-down version came into effect in March of that year. When Biden became the Democratic nominee he pledged to repeal the ban on his very first day in office. And true to his word, on January 20 he did exactly that. On this week's Beyond the Headlines host Cody Combs looks at how the repeal of the “Muslim Ban” will affect Muslim refugees.

In December 2019, two months after the start of the popular protests across Lebanon, Human Rights Watch warned of an impending health crisis in the country. The government was failing to fund public and private hospitals, and they in turn were struggling to pay staff and purchase medical equipment. This was before anyone in Lebanon had even heard of Covid-19. Since then the situation has been getting worse. The impact of Covid-19 has steadily been building - the economy shrank over 19% in 2020 and inflation continued to rise. When an explosion tore through Beirut in August, five nurses died, hospitals were damaged and the pressure on the healthcare system increased yet more. On this week's Beyond the Headlines, host Gareth Browne, takes a look at Lebanon’s failing health system and asks, can it survive the coronavirus pandemic?

On 20 January, 2021, Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States. President Biden has come into power breaking records and making history. He received more votes than any other president in history, beating Barack Obama’s previous record. At 78, he is the oldest president to be sworn in, breaking Donald Trump’s record. And he is the first president to have a female vice president, Kamala Harris. At the same time, as Trump leaves the White House, he too departs having made history. Trump is the only president to have been impeached twice. We talk to Dr Lindsay Chervinsky, presidential historian and scholar at the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies in New York state, and Bryant Harris, The National’s correspondent in Washington, about how unprecedented this presidential handover has been. Hosted by Cody Combs.

In December 2011 in Cairo, during a protest in Tahrir Square, a woman was captured on video being dragged along the ground. During the attack, her abaya, the name for the long, loose cloak worn by women in many Arab and Muslim countries, came undone, exposing her midriff and her blue bra. This moment became the catalyst for a growing women's movement in Egypt. Host Ayesha Khan talks to Ragia Omran, a lawyer from Egypt who has been a human and women’s rights activist since the mid ’90s, and Engy Ghozlan, a social activist from Egypt, about the movement. We also hear from Nadine Abdel Hamid, a 22-year-old woman who exposed Ahmed Bassem Zaki, a sexual predator who preyed on a shocking number of women and underage girls.

2020 ended with some relief that we now have vaccines for Covid-19. But the pandemic is not over yet and new strains of coronavirus have spread. Now we have to work out how to distribute the vaccines globally. And anyway, just how effective are they? Which is the best? How long will it take for them to reach us? On this week's Beyond the Headlines, Suhail Akram looks at the next front in the battle against Covid-19.

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.

The fires didn’t start the revolution, but you could say it was the kindling. The country suffers fires every year, but these were different. In this week's Beyond the Headlines, host James Haines-Young, looks back at a turbulent year in Lebanon from fires, to revolution to a massive explosion.

News update: Since publishing this podcast China announced on October 9 that it has joined Covax, the global scheme for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccine backed by the World Health Organisation. There are currently more than 150 Covid-19 vaccines in development. Billions of dollars are being pumped into research in the hope that a viable drug can reach the market in record time and ease the effects of the pandemic on individuals, societies and the global economy. This week we talk about the challenges in the race to find a coronavirus vaccine. We hear from Dr Jeremy Rossman, a virologist at the University of Kent, and Daniel Bardsley, who writes about the coronavirus for The National. Hosted by Suhail Akram.

On October the 1st 2019, protestors took to the streets of Iraq demonstrating against unemployment, government corruption and poor public services, such as electricity and clean water. As Iraqis mark the one year anniversary of the October protests, demonstrators have vowed to keep the protests going unless their demands of a peaceful and prosperous homeland are met. Renad Mansour, senior research fellow in the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, and Inas Jabbar, human rights activist from Baghdad, tells us what has changed since the October protests started and whether protesting is achieving anything. Hosted by Suhail Akram.

Nadia Abdulwahab, Lecturer in English Literature at Umm Al Qura University, and Marcel Kupershoek, author and senior humanities research fellow at NYU Abu Dhabi takes us through the evolution of Saudi Arabia and its people, since the founding of the kingdom. We also hear from Ahmed Al Saleh, a 25-year old Saudi student, and Salma Ibrahim, a 27-year old electrical engineer, about the changes they see in the kingdom and their excitement for the future of Saudi. Hosted by Balquees Basalom.

On the 15th of September, the UAE signed the historic Abraham Accord with Israel at a ceremony in Washington DC, in the first such agreement between an Arab country and Israel in over a quarter of a century. We hear from Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh, UAE’s permanent representative to the United Nations, and Omar Ghobash, UAE's assistant minister for cultural affairs and public diplomacy, about the UAE’s groundbreaking decision. Ambassador Dennis Ross, who served under President Barack Obama, President Clinton and President George H. W. Bush, and Ambassador Barbara Leaf, former US Ambassador to the UAE, give their takes on the agreement and what it means for the region. Hosted by Willy Lowry.

Free speech is part of the US bill of rights, which was ratified in 1791. It grants the freedom to express any opinion, without any restrictions or penalty from the government. However, there are restrictions to this right, in law. These include speech that incites violence, is part of criminal conduct or commercial advertising. As social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter don't have to enforce freedom of speech, many feel they should. This week, we hear from Mathew Ingram, chief digital writer for the Columbia Journalism Review, and Dr. Peter Yacobucci, an associate professor of political science at Buffalo State University. With the US presidential election fast approaching, they tell us how social media giants are grappling with freedom of speech. Hosted by Cody Combs.

News update. Since publishing this podcast Greece and Turkey have agreed to talks to avoid military escalation and accidents in the Eastern Mediterranean, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on September 3. On the 14th of August 2020, Greek and Turkish warships in the eastern Mediterranean collided. What was deemed a minor incident, prompted a virtual meeting of all 27 EU member states, and a statement was issued hinting at the possibility of sanctions in the future if Turkey failed to de-escalate. Turkey’s foreign minister responded by saying, "Instead of indulging Greece and giving unconditional support, the EU should invite Athens to act with reason." As Turkey announced maritime training exercises in the Mediterreanean, viewed in Europe as an aggressive move, France and Italy said they would also be heading into the waters for joint naval exercises with Greece and Cyprus. On the 2nd of September, US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo called for all parties involved to reduce tensions in the easter mediterranean. In this week's Beyond the Headlines, host Sulaiman Hakemy, takes a look at the rising tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean.

This week on Beyond the Headlines, we ask Athina Tzemprin from Moonshot CVE, an organisation that works to prevent radicalisation of people online, and Jesse Morton a former recruiter for Al Qaeda, who now works for Parallel Networks Inc, how people get radicalised on the internet. We also hear from Chelsea Daymon, a terrorism researcher and PhD candidate at the American University in Washington DC about her research which involved joining ISIS groups on social media platforms to learn more about them. Hosted by Taylor Heyman.

‘Long haulers’ or ‘Long-termers’ are people who have recovered from the coronavirus but weeks or even months later, are still experiencing symptoms. Diana Berrent, founder of Survivor Corps - a Facebook group with 90,000 members who discuss Covid-19 and its symptoms and seek each other's help, tells us about her experience with long-term symptoms from Covid-19. Dr. Natalie Lambert, associate research professor of medicine at Indiana University, partnered with Survivor Corps to research about these long-haul cases. She explains why we need to take cues from patient experiences and carefully understand what they need to recover. We also hear from Marcus Tomoff, a member of Survivor Corps, who contracted the virus and later on became a long-hauler. He describes how his life changed ever since he got a false negative. This podcast is hosted by Suhail Akram.

In this episode, we talk to Bassam ZaaZaa, a reporter with The National, and Zina Malas, a student at the American University of Beirut about their experience of the explosion. We also talk to Marianne Samaha, programme director for aid agency Plan International, who tells us who is most affected by the explosion. Hosted by James Haines Young SFX provided by: Ramston: https://freesound.org/people/Ramston/sounds/262254/ https://freesound.org/people/Ramston/sounds/262231/#

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.

There are 228 million cases worldwide every year. Many of them are fatal. It's for this reason, governments, international organisations and the UN spend billions trying to stop a disease that has plagued mankind since the dawn of time. This week on Beyond the headlines, host James Haines-Young speaks to Timothy Winegard, author of The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator, and Jerremy Herren, lead researcher at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi about mankind's battle with Malaria. SFX provided by: fisu (https://freesound.org/people/fisu/sounds/192435/) lizellekleynhans (https://freesound.org/people/lizellekleynhans/sounds/326179/)

A group of Indian workers, walking back to their villages after losing their jobs, were so tired from walking all night, they lay down on an empty railway track and fell asleep. India was under lockdown and no public transport was running. At about 5 in the morning on May 8, a freight train crashed into them, killing 16 people. It was not the coronavirus that killed them but what this virus has brought with it for many of the world’s poor – job losses, their inability to pay their rents, and a sheer apathy towards them by many of the world’s governments. On this week's edition of Beyond the Headlines, host Suhail Akram talks to Taniya Dutta, The National's correspondent in India, and Shankar Gopalakrishnan, an activist and a researcher based in India. We also hear from Rajiv G, assistant editor with The Times of India, about the "Kerala Model" and Samaan Lateef, a journalist from Kashmir who tells us how the people of Kashmir are affected by the pandemic.

From Island paradises to mountainous kingdoms… A few countries and territories sprinkled around the world have somehow remained COVID free. Or have they? This week, we talk to Martin Mckee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and David Watchorn, manager at Extra Divers Christmas Island. We also speak to Emmanuel Samoglou, a journalist and former multimedia editor at The National, about visiting the Cook Islands in the pacific when borders started to close. Hosted by Willy Lowry. SFX provided by: GaryEdstrom (https://freesound.org/people/GaryEdstrom/sounds/164043/) Doc Jon (https://freesound.org/people/Doc%20Jon/sounds/420637/)

Top scientists across the world are putting their best foot forward to produce a vaccine for Covid-19 as soon as possible. There are more than 90 vaccines for the virus at different stages of development. At least six of these are already being tested for safety in people. What remains to be seen is which of these vaccines will be ready first and which one will be the most effective. We talk to a senior lecturer in virology at the University of Kent, Dr Jeremy Rossman, and a visiting professor of science at Aston University in Birmingham, Robert Matthews about the search for an effective vaccine. This podcast was hosted by Suhail Akram.

This year the holy month of Ramadan comes at an unprecedented time. Covid-19 has impacted just about everything and Ramadan is no different. The usual scenes of mosques buzzing with worshippers and bazaar’s bustling with shoppers are missing. This Ramadan, those fasting are indoors like everybody else. While the fear of the virus lurks in the streets, inside their houses, most of the world's 1.8 billion Muslims are seeking help and peace in their solitary prayers. Host Suhail Akram talks to Khola Hassan, a religious scholar in the UK and Dr. Saad Al Ameri, an Emirati doctor treating coronavirus patients in the UAE. We also hear from The National's correspondents, Sunniva Rose in Lebanon and Hamza Hendawi in Egypt, about how life is different for Muslims this Ramadan.

This week, host Willy Lowry looks at how the UAE harnesses the rain with cloud seeding and Australia's effort to save the Great Barrier Reef through cloud brightening. We hear from Dr Deon Terblanche, a consultant in weather and climate at the World Bank, and Omar Al Yazeedi from the National Centre for Meteorology. We also speak to Daniel Harrison at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science. SFX provided by: test_sound: https://freesound.org/people/test_sound/sounds/464259/ Sandermotions: https://freesound.org/people/Sandermotions/sounds/278867/

Everyone has been affected in some way by the coronavirus pandemic. But some have had the most significant moments of their lives dramatically altered by the times. In a special edition of Beyond the Headlines, we look at births, marriages and deaths with three special stories. Host Willy Lowry talks to his sister, Alexis, who gave birth to her first child on March 26 just outside New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic in America. Izbel Mengel was supposed to get married on Easter day but had her dream wedding stolen when lockdown meant her 500 guests couldn't travel. Peter Wheeland lost his father Kenneth to Covid-19. Tight restrictions at the nursing home meant he didn't know if he would be allowed to be with his father when the time came. We also hear from Jo Beddington, a celebrant based in London who recently conducted a virtual funeral. SFX provided by: YleArkisto (https://freesound.org/people/YleArkisto/sounds/271350/) coetzee_megan12 (https://freesound.org/people/coetzee_megan12/sounds/366006/)

The unprecedented lockdown in Wuhan, China lifted at the stroke of midnight on April 8th. The city of Wuhan, where the Covid-19 pandemic began, has re-opened to the world. In this is a hope, not just for China but for the entire world battling the coronavirus outbreak. With its widespread testing, severe restrictions on movement, social distancing and the use of technology, China managed to flatten the curve and significantly slow the spread of the coronavirus. This week on Beyond The Headlines, host Suhail Akram talks to Dr Xi Chen, assistant professor of Public Health at Yale School of Medicine, about how China brought the coronavirus outbreak under control in just 100 days and what lessons can be learned from it. We also hear from Raymond Ferguson, an Irish national who lives in China’s Guangzhou city, and Ajlan Al Zaki, a UAE doctor at Stanford University's hospital in California.

In this week's Beyond the Headlines podcast host Willy Lowry speaks to fellow Canadian Chris Hadfield. The astronaut has been into space three times and worked as an astronaut, training in extreme conditions and preparing physically and mentally to be cooped up in the International Space Station. What does he have to say about our current state of self isolation, the fear of the pandemic and the break from our normal life patterns?

This week James Haines-Young, foreign editor at The National, talks about how a slow response and official denials turned Iran’s Covid-19 outbreak into a national emergency. We also speak to Ali Alfoneh, senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

It’s the word on everyone’s lips, and has been for months now -coronavirus. We haven’t seen an international response to a crisis on this scale before. One in which every single one of the world’s 195 countries are at risk. Nations are closing their borders, halting flights, limiting social interaction and closing workplaces... except for the most essential. The world's stock market has tumbled and shows no signs of stability. These are unprecedented times, when fake news and panic travel faster than the virus. Host Suhail Akram talks to Dr Tarik Jasarevic of World Health Organisation and science historian Simon Ings about the Coronavirus. We also hear from Dr Thoraiya Kanafani, a clinical psychologist, and Ali Khawaja, a self-proclaimed prepper based in the UAE.