Beyond the Headlines

On March 27, Israel ground to a halt in protest at a set of judicial reforms put forward by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right wing coalition.

On February 21 Tunisia’s president Kais Saied declared that “a criminal plan has been set up since the beginning of this century to alter the demographic structure of Tunisia”.

Thousands died and millions were displaced in a matter of moments following the violent earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey. While survivors are now trying to rebuild their lives, there is one group for whom recovering from the earthquake is an even harder challenge: the children who lost their parents.

First they were forced to flee their homes in Myanmar after the military regime launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing against them. Then they faced more horrors in the Bangladeshi refugee camps where they had sought sanctuary.

Now, Anjana Sankar reports on the perilous sea crossings many Rohingya are embarking on – in another desperate attempt finally to find a safe home.

Since the start of the Russia- Ukraine war, more than 12 million people have fled their homes. Military casualties on both sides are believed to have topped 200,000 while civilian casualties in Ukraine are at nearly 7000, according to the latest UN figures.

The UN says that 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians since systematic records began in 2005. Israeli security forces killed 151 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank territories and east Jerusalem last year, while 24 Israelis were killed by Palestinians.

Most people were tucked up in bed when the first quake hit. The ground shook violently as a fault roughly 200 km long and 25km wide slipped, causing a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake.

The force of the quake in the early hours of February 6 caused death and destruction across hundreds of kilometres of eastern Turkey and northern Syria.

The UN estimated that 23 million people were affected; the death toll jumped by hundreds, hour after hour.  

But as a number of experts told us in the wake of the tragedy, it’s not earthquakes that kill – it’s collapsing buildings.

This week on Beyond the Headlines, host James Haines-Young takes a closer look at the catastrophe and asks: could more have been done to make the buildings quake-proof?

We all know exactly what happened three years ago. The winter we didn’t expect was coming, and it stayed with us for years.

This time of the year now comes with memories of the world’s first Covid lockdown in China, and later when almost 3.9 billion people around the world followed suit. But still, more than 6 million people lost their lives due to coronavirus.

So what have we learnt from the pandemic?

On this week’s episode of Beyond the Headlines, host Enas Refaei takes a look at the legacy of Covid-19 and our preparedness for another pandemic.

It took months of wrangling and it nearly didn’t happen - but Ukraine will soon get some of the most formidable tanks ever built.

At the start of the war in February 2022, Western aid focused on sending either equipment the Ukrainian military already used, or items like night-vision and body-armour that could quickly be assimilated.

And for a long time there were still no tanks. But then that changed.

This week on Beyond the Headlines, host James Haines-Young takes a closer look at how and why the West suddenly agreed to send its best battle tanks to Ukraine and what this means for the war as it approaches its one year anniversary.

Thousands of business leaders, policy makers, experts, heads of government and state have gathered once again in a snowy Swiss mountain resort in January. There are crises affecting different parts of the world; the war in Ukraine, mitigating the impact of climate change and weakening global economic outlook. But other regions, like the Middle East, are looking at the opportunities from a world in transition.

In this special episode of Beyond the Headlines at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, host Mustafa Alrawi is highlighting the main discussions of the forum with The National’s editor in chief Mina Al-Oraibi and CNN’s international correspondent and anchor Richard Quest.