Beyond the Headlines

Tunisia’s contested referendum

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 failed to deliver on the socioeconomic demands that had driven the revolution: jobs were still scarce, prices were rising, and the basic services you expect from your government — everything from rubbish collection to transportation — weren’t working. The economy tanked; inflation rose; tens of thousands of young Tunisians hopped on rickety boats, trying to get to Italy. People’s dissatisfaction with their government grew. Protests raged on the streets in the winter of 2020 and spring of 2021. They wanted change.

Then, in July last year, President Kais Saied fired his government, shuttered parliament and essentially took full control of the country, saying it was the only way to stop the political deadlock. Now he’s asking Tunisians to vote in a referendum this Monday to ratify a new constitution — one it appears he’s written almost entirely himself.

This week on Beyond the Headlines, Erin Clare Brown investigates Tunisia’s constitutional referendum — and explains what it means not just for the country but for the wider region.

How will President Biden’s visit to the Middle East be remembered?

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 are pushing up prices across the board. Talks with Iran on reviving a nuclear accord to limit Tehran’s enrichment of uranium have stalled. A tentative ceasefire in Yemen is holding, but major challenges remain to end the more than five-year war. Energy and security might be top of his agenda but so is the fundamental question of America’s role in the Middle East.

This week on Beyond the Headlines, host James Haines-Young talks to The National's US correspondent Willy Lowry about President Biden’s visit to the Middle East, how it was received and how it will be remembered.

Five years after ISIS, when will Mosul be rebuilt?

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 this week's episode, host Robert Tollast asks why is it taking so long to rebuild Mosul.

What is the future of Nato?

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.

 

 

How to live longer

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. Take out those threats and an average human is capable of a 70th birthday.

And now, with breakthroughs in our understanding of genetics and billions of dollars being poured into life sciences research, we may find ways to extend our lives, maybe to even double that number, in the next few decades. 

On this week's Beyond the Headlines host Kelsey Warner looks at the future of ageing and longevity.

How rising prices in the Middle East are pushing people into poverty

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 costs of living, people in many places in the Middle East - and around the world - are struggling to regularly buy quality raw food ingredients as prices skyrocket.

In this episode of Beyond the Headlines, host Ahmed Maher speaks to people from across the Middle East to see how rising prices are pushing some of them into food poverty.

When and how can America stop the mass shootings?

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, chilling examples of how gun violence has traumatised America - they’re only the tip of the iceberg.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, the US has suffered at least 246 mass shootings in 2022. Not all of them make the news, so frequent have mass shootings become there. Many Americans have long been calling for action on gun control. So why is it so difficult to bring in reform?

On this week’s Beyond the Headlines, host Suhail Akram looks at what can realistically be done to tackle US gun deaths.

What can be done to stop the tide of dust storms?

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 swiftly covered in a film of dust.

You may think this is happening to a character in an apocalypse movie, but it's becoming a regular occurrence for people in many parts of the world, and especially the Middle East. 

In spring, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and parts of Israel and Egypt experience the most frequent dust storms. Moving into summer, Iran, Syria and the Gulf will be hit by the flurry of sand and minerals. Many of these countries are sources of the dust as well as feeling the impact of it. 

In this week's Beyond the Headlines, host Taylor Heyman looks at the impact of dust storms on the Middle East and asks what can be done to mitigate them.

Davos 2022 biggest takeaways

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 considering whether history has reached another turning point?

Mustafa Alrawi, The National’s Assistant Editor-in-Chief, and Mina Al-Oraibi, The National's Editor-in-Chief, are joined by CNN anchor Julia Chatterley in Davos to discuss the key takeaways from the WEF annual meeting.

Will the Lebanese election be a turning point?

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 rose up in a popular protest movement, apparently determined to change a political system that seemed to be pushing the country over a precipice.

Then, in August of 2020, a devastating explosion at Beirut’s port killed hundreds, left hundreds of thousands homeless, and caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage in a country that could ill afford to pay the bill. Many blamed the same culture of political mismanagement for the catastrophic explosion.
 
In this week’s episode of Beyond the Headlines, Finbar Anderson asks: will the Lebanese election be seen as a turning point for an embattled country in desperate need of change? Or was it a sideshow designed to buy the ruling elite time and a false sense of legitimacy?