Beyond the Headlines

As much of the world’s focus remained firmly fixed on ending the coronavirus pandemic, another illness was quietly spreading in the background and has now emerged as a global health concern. A few months ago, monkeypox, an infectious viral disease, began cropping up in countries across Europe for the first time in years. The virus is spread from person to person through close contact. Historically...

On August 15, 1947, British Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten formally announced India's independence from British colonial rule. The Indian subcontinent was partitioned into two countries – India and Pakistan.   The borders were drawn hastily along religious lines. Muslim-majority provinces became part of Pakistan, Hindu and Sikh majority areas remained in India. The borders cut through villages, ri...

It’s amazing how the UAE’s home-grown produce has become so diversified. Over the years, farms have been modernised and new crops introduced. The supermarket aisles we browse in the UAE vividly illustrate the country’s progress.   The UAE aims to be the most food-secure nation by 2051, according to the National Food Security Strategy. But will this ambition be realised and can local farms keep up...

This summer is breaking temperature records like never before. The rising mercury is a reminder of the impact of climate change. Unless drastic action is taken, the temperatures seen in recent weeks will become increasingly common. Failing to find sustainable ways to heat and cool our offices and homes when temperatures soar – or plummet in winter – could lead to more Co2 being produced as more pe...

For nearly three years, Lebanon has been steadily collapsing under the weight of a financial crisis that is one of the worst in the modern world. But what is life like for those who have to live through the situation on the ground?   To be Lebanese is to navigate a slew of daily challenges caused by the economic rupture. So people have developed coping mechanisms. And they’re not always healthy. E...

For more than a decade, Tunisia was seen as the poster child for democratic transition after the Arab Uprisings of 2011. By 2014 the country had had two free and fair elections and ratified a new constitution. But the consensus-building that went into drafting that new constitution soon dissolved, leaving behind partisan bickering and political deadlock. Successive governments and parliaments fail...

Joe Biden has made his first visit to the Middle East as US president. He might be no stranger to the region, having visited dozens of times as vice president and senator for Delaware, but this is the first time since he was elected to America’s top office. And it comes at a time of uncertainty. Oil and food prices have surged since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and global inflationary pressures...

Five years have passed since Iraq liberated Mosul from ISIS in a bloody, street to street battle that left 11,000 civilians dead and much of the northern city in ruins.  Millions fled the brutal three year rule of the terror group and hundreds of thousands more fled the deverstating fighting to recapture the city.  But five years after victory, several neighbourhoods in Mosul still lie in ruins. ...

On June 29, world leaders gathered in Madrid to discuss the future direction of the The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.    On this week’s Beyond the Headlines, host Mina Aldroubi speaks to Michael Stephens, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, about the Nato summit’s biggest talking points.    

Steve Jobs once said: "The most precious resource we all have is time."  For most of history, the average human life expectancy has been about around 70 years. Although average life expectancy has been rising for years, this is because more of us make it that far and many beyond. Fewer of us are dying at birth, in childhood, in the midst of raging battle or being mauled to death by wild animals. T...

When you hear of Arab cuisine, what imagery does it conjure up? Hummus, bulgur wheat, meat, chicken and spices like sumac, cumin and cinnamon. Lavish dinner parties with popular dishes like Egyptian koshary, Jordanian mansaf and Iraqi tashreeb. The bigger the dish, the more generous the host. That is a deeply rooted belief in Arab culture. Despite the Gulf countries being insulated from the rising...

On 14 May, a white gunman in body armour killed 10 black shoppers and workers at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Ten days later, an attacker shot dead 19 students and their two teachers in their classrooms at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Then, on 1 June, another gunman killed two doctors and two others at an Oklahoma medical building in Tulsa. These are just some of the recent, chi...

The sky turns orange as a huge cloud of dust rolls toward you. Your vision is impaired and your chest feels tight as you struggle to draw breath.  You grab a scarf and wrap it around your face as you hurry inside, but the coughing continues long after you reach safety. For those in refugee camps, even this escape is denied. Sand is buffeted against flimsy tents and belongings and residents become...

The Berlin Wall fell more than three decades ago, precipitating a generational collapse of political and economic boundaries in Europe. Now, in 2022, conflict and confusion is on the continent's doorstep once again. Experts and leaders, including around 50 heads of state and government, have gathered in the Swiss resort of Davos this week for the World Economic Forum annual meeting, where they are...

People across Lebanon cast their votes last Sunday in an election that was meant to be different.  So much has happened since the last poll, in 2018, when familiar faces were elected from parties largely made up of the same people who had fought the civil war decades earlier.  First, the economy started to creak - and eventually collapsed. In 2019, hundreds of thousands of people across Lebanon ro...

President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed died on May 13, 2022, at the age of 73. He was born in September 1948, before the UAE existed as a single nation and before the discovery of oil in the Emirates. In his lifetime he saw the rise of the nation from a collection of Bedouin and fishing villages to one of the leading and most competitive economies in the Middle East. As the eldest son of Sheikh Zayed...

On May 16, the European Union will no longer require people to wear masks on planes. Many countries around the world have already started to relax Covid-19 restrictions. And some, like Greece, New Zealand and Japan, are preparing to drop all rules in time for summer. So is it finally time to get back to normal? At least to the way life was before the pandemic. Or is it time to simply embrace the ‘...

Late one Saturday night towards the end of April, a boat set off to sea from near Lebanon’s second city, Tripoli. It was an ageing craft, nearly 50 years old, built to comfortably hold maybe a dozen people, at a push. But on this voyage it was carrying perhaps 60, maybe as many as 80.  Among those on board were Amid Dandachi, his wife and their three children. In all, around 22 members of the exte...

Rescued from the choppy seas of the English Channel or landing on the windswept beaches of the east of England, over the last three years thousands of people in small inflatable dinghies have made the perilous crossing from France. As dozens died making the journey, the UK deployed the coast guard, the navy and the lifeboat service to try and rescue those attempting to make the journey. In 2021, a...

Muslims around the world are marking the first Ramadan in three years to take place largely without Covid-19 restrictions. But now another crisis is casting a pall over the holy month.   The war in Ukraine, a global economic downturn and a high oil price, among other factors, are driving food prices to an all-time high.   Nations which import most of their food - including many in the Middle East ...

Pakistan has a new prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif. The 70-year-old this week replaced Imran Khan, who failed to stop a no-confidence motion against him in what was a dramatic last-minute vote on the night of April 9.  Sharif won with 174 votes, after more than 100 lawmakers from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-Insaf party resigned and walked out.  Khan’s ousting and Sharif's win mean that no Pakistani pri...

A group of Afghan refugees in Poland have rushed to support the millions of Ukrainians who fled the Russian invasion. The painful memories of their own war are a shadow only too recent. One of the group, 27-year-old Sabur Dawod Zai, escaped the 20-year conflict in Afghanistan when the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. He, like so many others, embarked on an arduous journey to avoid the har...

Your curtains open on a timer. You rise with the sun shining - which it does most days of the year here - and a sensor detects when you’re standing under the shower, activating the water at your preferred temperature, no time or water to waste. Your refrigerator has the right ingredients to grab breakfast and pack a quick lunch; it automatically orders your groceries when you begin to run low. As...

Since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine, millions of people have fled the country in search of safety elsewhere in Europe. Most are women and children, with men of fighting age required to stay and protect their homeland. So often the story of war is told through masculine eyes — soldiers fighting heroically on the front, typically male politicians battling for control of the narrative through...

In the early hours of March 13, 2022, streaks of light punctuated the sky above the northern Iraqi city of Erbil as a barrage of rockets rained down on a building near the old town. The thud and blasts shook the city, orange flames rose up and thick black smoke stood out against the deep purple of the night.   This week on Beyond the Headlines, host James Haines-Young looks at why Iran is raining...