The Political Fourcast

Can we finally see the light at the end of the Covid tunnel?

After nearly two years of living with strict lockdowns and curbs on our civil liberties, all remaining domestic restrictions have now been removed from law in England.

Today, Minnie Stephenson talks to our Health and Social Care Editor Victoria Macdonald as we try and make sense of the past two years.

With Boris Johnson himself not ruling out the possibility of new variants in the future, we ask is this really the right time to be ending all restrictions?

Are we right to be treating Covid like flu or are we all breathing a sigh of relief too soon?

The first ever vaccine for malaria has been approved by the WHO and will now be rolled out across sub-Saharan Africa and in other regions, in a bid to save thousands of children’s lives.

A chance to change the course of a disease that in 2019 killed more than 260,000 children in Africa.

In today’s podcast, Dr Mary Hamel, who leads the WHO’s malaria vaccine implementation program, talks about the effectiveness of this vaccine and whether one day we really could see the eradication of malaria.

Sources: ITN, WHO, AP

In Israel a constitutional crisis has seen thousands take to the streets, fearing that their rights could be eroded, as the government plans to weaken the powers of the highest court in the land.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu’s far-right coalition argues the Supreme Court is too powerful and they’re simply righting the wrongs of the system.

Protesters say the overhaul would erode Israel’s proud democracy and lead them towards a dictatorship.

After weeks of protests and pressure from all sides, Netanyahu finally backed down, but only slightly. He’s now paused the reforms ahead of the next session of parliament in a few weeks.

Today, editor in chief of Haaretz Esther Solomon unpicks Israel’s biggest protests in decades, and wonders whether Netayanhu’s pause is a chance for his side to regroup of yet more battles to come.

Are we heading for nuclear war with Russia? Russia has invaded Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin has told all his generals to put their entire armed forces, including nuclear team, on high alert.

But could the UK and its Western allies end up at war with Russia?

In this episode Georgina Lee from our FactCheck team explains how close, or not, the world is to a possible nuclear conflict.

Sources: BBC NEWS

As the Covid vaccine is offering new hope around the world to end the pandemic, the biggest growing threat to people’s health is the surge in disinformation, conspiracy theories and fake news.

Anti-vaxxers and vaccine hesitant voices have become even louder. As many countries in Europe resume the rollout of the AstraZenaca vaccine after having paused it for some days, the damage in people’s confidence in the jab will be hard to heal.

Having spent time hearing from people who don’t trust the vaccine for various reasons and others who deny Covid’s existence altogether - Ayshah Tull and Paraic O’Brien chat about the potentially devastating impacts on these views.