Five podcasts to listen to while under lockdown

From combating Ebola in the DRC to a family suing Khalifa Haftar in the US – things to listen to in lockdown.

Five podcasts for lockdown - Composite image

From the banning of mahraganat music in Egypt to a family suing Libya’s renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar in American courts to an investigation into the corrupt trade of diplomatic passports, here are five podcast episodes to listen to while under lockdown.

1) How one song got Egypt’s hottest music genre banned

Mahraganat
Young men observe from a rooftop as smoke from flares fills the sky during a local wedding in Salam City, a suburb on the outskirts of Cairo in March 2015 [File: Mosa’ab Elshamy/AP Photo]

Egypt’s low-tech, high-energy mahraganat music blasted out of the shantytowns to top the global charts on Soundcloud and rack up hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. But one slip-up at a massive concert in Cairo threw the entire genre’s future into question.

Listen to the story here.

2) An American strongman, a Libyan colonel and a suburban family

Khalifa Haftar LNA Libya
Members of the Libyan National Army commanded by Khalifa Haftar get ready before leaving Benghazi to reinforce the troops advancing to Tripoli in April 2019 [File: Esam Omran al-Fetori/Reuters]

Two teenage girls in the United States received a phone call that they never hoped to hear. Their favourite uncle had been killed in Libya, where their family lives. More than 150,000 have been forced to flee their homes in Libya since Khalifa Haftar started his offensive in Tripoli. We hear from the family in Virginia using the American court system to sue General Haftar.

Listen to their story here.

3) An outbreak nearing its end

Ebola
A healthcare worker decontaminates his colleague after entering the home of a woman suspected of dying of Ebola, in the eastern Congolese town of Beni in the Democratic Republic of the Congo [File: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]

As coronavirus cases are on the rise, we turned our attention to a different outbreak – one that is winding down. Doctors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have discharged the last Ebola patient, and if there are no new cases, this will signal an end to the deadly epidemic that began in August 2018.

Learn how the DRC and its community leaders are bringing Ebola to an end, here.

4) How a multinational company scarred a small Brazilian mining town

The take - How a multinational company scarred a small Brazilian mining town - reupload
Members of a rescue team search for victims after a tailings dam owned by Brazilian mining company Vale SA collapsed in Brumadinho, Brazil in January 2019 [File: Adriano Machado/Reuters]

In the small town of Brumadinho in southern Brazil, residents are complaining of skin diseases, depression and odd illnesses they had never seen before. It all started just over a year ago after the local dam collapsed, spreading toxic mud and destroying everything in its path.

Listen to the story here.

5) Diplomats for Sale

Investigations podcast - Diplomat for Sale - REUPLOAD
A diplomatic passport can be bought for the right amount of money [Manoj Bullah/Al Jazeera]

Ever wanted a second citizenship? You can buy that – and it is totally legal. But unsurprisingly, the market for passports is rife with corruption. Al Jazeera’s investigative team dug into the practice, and discovered more than they had bargained for.

Dive into the first of this four-part series from our new podcast featuring the network’s biggest and most explosive investigations here.

Source: Al Jazeera