Rape is being used as a deliberate weapon in the civil war in Ethiopia. 

 

Thousands have been killed in massacres, thousands more have fled and countless women and girls have been violently raped. 

 

Today, we speak to our Africa correspondent Jamal Osman about the stories he’s uncovered from this ongoing civil war that gets so little coverage - and we talk to Donatella Rovera, a senior investigator at Amnesty International, about whether justice will ever come to those whose lives have been scarred forever. 

 

Warning: this episode contains distressing content and accounts of rape. 

 

If you’ve been affected by the detail in this podcast, you can seek help by going to channel 4.com/support

For weeks, Westminster has been waiting for the Sue Gray report. How many parties? Was Boris Johnson there? Was ABBA played? After all that time, we’ve only got 12 pages. But there’s a Met Police investigation to come and maybe more from Sue Gray herself.

Our political editor Gary Gibbon looks back at the week that was in Westminster.

Sources: BBC News, ITV News

With inflation rates in the UK at a 30 year high, energy bills set to increase at a record rate in April, how is the government responding to the cost of living crisis? 

And why could Russia’s potential invasion of Ukraine mean we have to pay higher gas bills in the UK?

On today’s Fourcast, we speak to our Business and Global Trade Correspondent, Paul McNamara, about why the UK’s cost of living is soaring, meaning many people are having to choose between heating or eating.

Sources: DW News, Bloomberg, BBC News

The day the statue of Edward Colston fell in June 2020 was a defining moment for Bristol.

It was also a defining moment for Britain’s relationship with its past as well as its approach to protest.

Recently, the four people accused of causing criminal damage to the statue were acquitted. To some it was justice, to others it represented a system that’s flawed.

In today’s podcast, our Home Affairs Correspondent Andy Davies details the legacy of Colston and the government’s response to the statue’s toppling.

And we hear from one of the Colston Four themselves as well as the former Lord Mayor of Bristol about the pivotal moment in the city’s history.

Sources: BBC Breakfast, ITV News

A coroner’s report this week identified “very serious and very basic investigative failings” by the Metropolitan Police over the investigations into the killing of four young men by the serial killer Stephen Port between 2014 and 2015.

 

Police repeatedly missed opportunities that might have stopped Port.

 

The families of his victims said they were “incensed” that the jury had not been allowed to consider whether homophobia might have played a role in police failings.

 

In today’s episode, correspondent Minnie Stephenson details what went wrong and how innocent men died.

 

Sources: BBC News

Tomorrow, plan B measures end in England, with face masks no longer needed in public places and Covid passports dropped after only a few weeks in use. Boris Johnson said the Omicron wave had peaked nationally. 

But before Christmas, newspaper headlines were full of fears about millions of cases a day and the NHS being overwhelmed like never before.

That did not happen - so what’s going on and were the Covid models wrong?

FactCheck’s Georgina Lee explains it all.

Sources: DW News, BBC News, The Telegraph

Why was Prince Andrew friends with a convicted paedophile and a now convicted sex trafficker? Did he go to Pizza Express in Woking and will Virginia Giuffre get her day in Court? 

 

Our Investigations Editor Job Rabkin walks us through the civil trial, the history of the Prince and the paedophile and what’s next for the man ninth in line to the British throne.

 

Sources: BBC Newsnight, BBC Panorama, ITV News, ITV: Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile,  Sky News

From Make America Great Again to Make America Normal Again.

It’s one year since Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th President promising to end the late-night tweets, the endless firings, the fake news, the fake science, and the threats to American democracy.

But how has he fared 12 months on?

In today’s episode, our Washington Correspondent Siobhan Kennedy details the highs and lows, and with Biden’s poll numbers struggling, will his party hold onto the House and Senate in the November elections?

Sources: Biden Inaugural Committee, The Independent, TODAY, CBS News, BBC News, News Nation Now, CNN, Washington Post, Fox News

Talks between Russia and Western powers over the situation in Ukraine finished in a “dead end” last week, with Vladimir Putin’s forces still amassed on the border, threatening war.

With the US Secretary of State in Kiev right now trying to de-escalate tensions, can conflict be avoided?

Europe editor Matt Frei asks whether the West can stop Russia, and he talks about what he’s seen on the ground in Ukraine.

She was once feted as the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire who promised that her blood testing start-up would transform the future of healthcare but now Elizabeth Holmes has been found guilty of four counts of fraud.

Holmes, who managed to dupe some of the world’s richest and most powerful businessmen, now faces decades in jail.

Today, Kiran speaks to our economics correspondent Helia Ebrahimi about the unravelling of a once Silicon superstar - and what this tale tells us about the world of start-ups and high-level investors.

Sources: Sky News, HBO, Bill Clinton Initiative, CNBC, CNN, CBS, entrepreneurship.org

Sources: Sky News, CBS News, Daily Mail, BBC News