Beyond the Headlines

From the sidelines to the front lines, women in Saudi Arabia are joining the military for the first time in recent history. In September, photos of these determined women in service uniforms made a splash in media outlets, in the latest display of just how far Saudi women have come since the ban on driving was lifted two years ago and the floodgates of opportunity opened. Announced in 2016, Vision...

Every year, for millions of parents, pupils and teachers around the world, September means the summer holidays are coming to an end and it is time to go back to school.  But in Lebanon, the mix of fuel shortages, economic inflation, power cuts and the Covid-19 pandemic means the country's education system may not be able to handle the influx of pupils, potentially leaving thousands of children wit...

On September 11, 2001 New York's World Trade Centre towers were brought crashing down, forever changing the course of history.   Almost 3,000 lives were lost that day – as well as America’s innocence. With the country’s vulnerability to terrorism so cruelly exposed, the US instigated two foreign invasions whose consequences are still being felt today.   On this week's Beyond the Headlines, host Le...

America’s longest war is over after the dramatic withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan ordered by President Joe Biden. The Taliban have taken Kabul. Barely a shot was fired. With the final evacuations planes now departed, many people vulnerable to Taliban revenge have been left behind, despite assurances from the US and other governments, and have been forced into hiding. On this week's Beyond...

In April 2021, customs officers in the Saudi city of Jeddah searched a shipment of Lebanese pomegranates. Hidden inside the fruit were more than five million circular, beige Captagon pills – illegal amphetamines. It was the latest in a long line of interceptions in recent years that have seen officers in the kingdom stop millions of pills and tonnes of drugs being smuggled in.  But for Saudi Arabi...

Afghanistan has seen war for decades, but none of them has involved so decisive a military takeover of the country as the latest. The speed with which the Taliban swept the country has shocked the world. Why did the Afghan army collapse? Did president Ashraf Ghani have to flee? Is this a betrayal by the US administration? And what about the safety of Afghans, particularly women, under Taliban rule...

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 co...

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?

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....

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.

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...

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 wit...

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,...

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 Sau...

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 w...

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 tha...

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 b...

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...

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 tie...

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...

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 ke...

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 hop...

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 simm...

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....

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....