Beyond the Headlines

All six Arabian Gulf countries import between 80 to 97 per cent of their food. Due to water scarcity and poor soil, it typically costs less to import food than to grow it here. According to the ministry of climate change and environment, the demand for food will increase by 300 per cent, putting a huge strain on our economies.

We tackle the food-scarcity issue on this week's Beyond the Headlines. Host Naser Al Wasmi is joined by Dr Ismahane Elouafi, Director General at International Center for Biosaline Agriculture, to discuss how governments are working to better ensure the growth of local food.

We also get into the scientific side with Abdul Rahman Al Fraih, a researcher at the public authority of agriculture in Kuwait. Science is key in developing the methods and capacity to grow food locally. The Arabian Gulf, with its arid environment and desert soil, is not ideal — nor are cold, northern hemisphere environments. The greenhouse has gone through centuries of development to get to the point where growing food in minus-20 degrees (C) was possible.

Follow Beyond the Headlines and the rest of our shows on Apple Podcasts.

Clashes broke out in Aden over the weekend when the Southern Transitional Council called to its constituents to demonstrate. The Yemen government banned protests on the streets and prompted the semi-autonomous group to confront the presidential guard. Dozens were killed and hundreds injured. Both are blaming the violence on the other side, but are now adhering to a ceasefire organized by the Arab coalition.

Host Naser Al Wasmi is joined by Professor Elisabeth Kendall, an Oxford academic, who was supposed to be in Yemen at the time the protests broke out. She explained the history of the conflict and provided context to the war.

Later in the show, The National correspondent Ali Mahmood reports from the streets of Yemen. Mr Mahmood covered the three days of violence and sheds light on where this clash might go from here.

Beyond the Headlines is The National's weekly analysis and insight from the Middle East. Follow, subscribe and rate us at Apple Podcasts, Audioboom, Pocket Cast or your favourite podcasting app.

Turkey launched this week a military offensive into Afrin, a heavily Kurdish enclave of Syria. Ankara is calling it an 'anti-terror campaign,' targeting the US-backed Kurdish group, the People’s Protection Units. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is justifying the offensive as a pre-emptive strike, or Turkey’s right to self-defence.

The war is likely an attempt for the country to hide behind anti-terrorist rhetoric to settle old scores against the Kurds. Kareem Shaheen, a journalist based in Turkey, joins the show to break down why this move shifts Turkey’s political alliances.

The Kurdish people have long been a part of the region and believe they have been severely marginalised. Sofia Barbarani, an editor on the foreign desk, has spent several years reporting out of Kurdish-heavy areas of both Syria and Iraq. She joins the show to discuss Kurdish history in the region, their ultimate goals and the political differences among the several factions spread across the region.

This is an acronym-heavy show so we’ve provided a guide to the initials below:

• Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK: the Kurdish organization that have been involved in an armed conflict with Turkey since 1984 with the aim of creating an independent state. They have more recently demanded equal rights in Turkey.

• Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units, or the YPG: Syrian rebels fighting president Bashar Al Assad. Accused of displacing local Arabs ot expand the areas of northern Syria under Kurdish control. Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the PKK.

• Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF: a militia alliance dominated by the Kurdish YPG and backed by the US.

Beyond the Headlines is The National's weekly analysis and insight from the Middle East. Follow, subscribe and rate us at Apple Podcasts, Audioboom, Pocket Cast or your favourite podcasting app.

Reporting from The World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, taking place during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, host Naser Al Wasmi talks to two Paraguayan girls who have been honoured for their conservation efforts in their rainforest home. If not for young students Pamela Armoa and Analia Velazquez, the distinct, bell-like sound of the Bare-throated Bellbird risks fading away.

We also spoke to H Harish Hande, the founder of the Selco Foundation and winner of the Zayed Future Energy for Prize best non-profit organisation. His group looks to empower residents of India’s slums.

And we sat down with the recipient of the lifetime achievement award, Shuji Nakamura. The Japanese scientist is responsible for developing the LED. The technology is found in everything from the iPhone to lightbulbs that are ten times more efficient that traditional lighting.

Beyond the Headlines is The National's weekly analysis and insight from the Middle East. Follow, subscribe and rate us at Apple Podcasts, Audioboom, Pocket Cast or your favourite podcasting app.

This week, Israel banned twenty activist organisations over their support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement against Israel or BDS for short.

The movement, whose co-founder we speak to in the show, is built upon three founding ideas: To put an end to Israeli occupation of all Arab lands and dismantling the wall as per international law; second, to recognize the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and finally, to respect and protect the right of Palestinians refugees to return to their homes as stipulated by the United Nations.

These three causes reflect what are widely recognized as the basic human rights Palestinians deserve. For supporting the cause, twenty international groups were banned from entering Israel.

Host Naser Al Wasmi is also joined by an activist from one of the organisations that were banned, Ariel Gold. The American is an activist at Code Pink: Women for Peace, an NGO aimed at providing a peace and social justice movement. The organisation identifies as women-initiated and has done a lot of work within Gaza. However, with the boycott, the international organisation will be unable to reach those Palestinian beneficiaries who benefit from their work.

Another one of the twenty organisations that were banned earlier this week was the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Fatin Al Tamimi speaks to us on how this move will interfere with her work promoting Palestinian statehood.

BDS: bdsmovement.net; @bdsmovement

Code Pink: codepink.org; @ArielElyseGold

IPSC: ipsc.ie; @ipsc48

From our friends on the 85% podcast, we consider the changes unfolding in Saudi Arabia from a regional perspective. In conversation with emerge85 Lab editor-in-chief Joseph Dana, emerge85 co-director Mishaal Al Gergawi (@algergawi) and Mina Al-Oraibi (@AlOraibi), editor of the UAE's leading English-language newspaper The National, discuss the challenges facing Saudi Arabia, what western media are missing, and the future of the regional order.

In Iran, this week a small demonstration that started in Mashhad turned into nationwide protests, with some calling for regime change. Iran has a long history of coups, protests and demonstrations. Of all the countries in the Middle East, historically, none other than Iran has been more defined by the spark within a person or group that drives them to take to the streets and fight for change. Host Naser Al Wasmi is joined by Golnaz Esfandiari, political analyst for Freedom House and a journalist, to shed light into why the demonstrations are happening in the first place across the country. Later in the show, Nazenin Ansari, a journalist and managing editor of Kayhan London draws comparisons from this protest to demonstrations past. The Green Revolution, or the Persian Awakening as it was being called during its height in 2009, was calling for the removal of then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The grievances were clear then and the Iranian government’s reaction was equally clear: widespread arrests and a clampdown on the protests. This time, however, the main takeaway of the protests is not clear, and neither is the outcome.

The Middle East in 2017 could look like relatively tame year in a region that has become so characteristic of extreme often dramatic changes. 

The Arab world has become a stage for an ever shifting political reality, with coups, civil wars and millions of people displaced from conflict in the last ten years. Despite all of this, the Arabian Gulf typically remains quite peaceful as the leaders have a policy of prioritizing stability.  However, this year was different. The three of the biggest stories of 2017 came out of the Arabian Peninsula with the reform policies of Saudi Arabia, the GCC crisis and the change within Iraq. 

Naser Al Wasmi is joined by his colleagues on The National's foreign desk, Dana Moukhallati and Mina Al Droubi, to look into what might be in stock for the region in 2018.

Jerusalem serves as one of the holiest sites in the world, and as the scene of some of the most dramatic political events. Donald Trump last week recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which sent waves of protest around the world. We spoke to Joseph Dana, a writer for the National, to explain what it means on the ground. The move is likely to create unrest, but we look to understand how it will change regional dynamics.

Also, as part of World Arabic Language Day, assistant foreign editor Laura Mackenzie interviews an Arabic language teacher in the UAE on the importance of learning the language, and how Arabic serves as an identity, religious signifier and a cultural unifier for the more than 420 million people that speak it.

As dozens of Arabic-speaking nations celebrate their language this week, The National's Mina Aldroubi, Naser Alwasmi and Saeed Saeed discuss whether the language is being lost, the importance of preservation and education among Arab youths, and more on this special edition of Beyond the Headlines.