Beyond the Headlines

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?

Sheikh Khalifa’s legacy

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 bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the Founding Father of the UAE, Sheikh Khalifa’s involvement in public life began at a very young age.

On this week's Beyond the Headlines host Faisal Salah looks back at the life of Sheikh Khalifa and hears from UAE cultural historian and columnist for The National Peter Hellyer about his legacy.

Is the Covid-19 pandemic over?

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 ‘new normal'?

This week on Beyond the Headlines, host Suhail Akram asks experts and health care professionals if the pandemic is truly over.

The desperation that drove refugees from Lebanon to their deaths at sea

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 extended Dandachi family were on the boat. The family are from the suburb of Qibbe, one of Tripoli’s poorest neighbourhoods. And Tripoli is one of Lebanon’s poorest cities. With Lebanon's economic crisis ongoing they hoped heading west would offer them a better future

But only an hour or two after they left land, the boat was intercepted. Lebanese naval forces demanded it turn back. The boat’s helmsman tried to make a break for it but the navy crashed into the overcrowded craft towards the bow, splitting the hull. At least six people died and approximately 30 are still missing.

On this week's Beyond The Headlines, Finbar Anderson looks at the story of a tragic shipwreck off the coast of Tripoli, and how it’s an all too familiar fate for thousands of people trying to reach a better life in Europe.

Is Rwanda really the solution to Britain’s migrant issue?

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, an estimated 28,526 people crossed the channel in small boats. Data for the first half of 2022 showed over 8,000 had made the journey with tens of thousands more expected in the calmer, warmer summer months.

The arrivals have sparked a heated debate.

Some accuse the government of being soft on immigration, turning a blind eye to smugglers and not policing the country’s borders. Others accuse the government of a callous disregard for human life and failing to meet obligations to those fleeing for their lives.

And now, the UK has said “enough”.

On this week's Beyond the Headlines, host James Haines-Young delves into the UK Government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda and asks whether such proposals can even solve the issue.  

The Ramadan food crisis

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 such as Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen - are suffering the most. And the head of the World Bank has said the food crisis will last for months. 

 

On this week’s Beyond the Headlines, host Taylor Heyman asks how Muslims are dealing with shortages and price hikes this holy month, and what governments are doing to help relieve the pressure.

 

Is this really the end for Imran Khan?

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 prime minister since the country’s formation has been able to complete a full five-year parliamentary tenure. Imran Khan also became the first prime minister in the history of Pakistan to lose office through a parliamentary no-confidence vote.

On this week's Beyond the Headlines, host Suhail Akram looks at Imran Khan’s fall from power and asks: will he return?

How Afghans in Poland are helping Ukrainian refugees

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 harsh rule of the Taliban and found himself in Poland. So when Sabur and his friends saw a newspaper photograph depicting four people, including two children, killed in the war, they could identify with the horror. Grateful for the warm welcome they received in Poland, they just wanted to pay it back.

This week on Beyond the Headlines, host Ahmed Maher explores how Afghans in Poland, themselves displaced, have mobilised to support Ukrainians fleeing the war.