Sheikh Haseena: A Defensive Interviewee

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Sheikh Haseena is a very prickly, defensive interviewee with the Western media. Any implicit suggestion that things are not going perfectly in Bangladesh is something that annoys her a lot. Astor: Negotiating a way through that crowd took me back to South Asia before we even got into the conversation. When you did get into the conversation, what did she say? She answered by criticising pretty much every post-independence government Bangladesh has had before her own.

Over two decades in office, the prime minister and her Awami League party have overseen impressive growth and reforms in a notoriously corrupt country—but that same firm hand may now be limiting Bangladesh’s progress. Our correspondent visits the frontier of a potentially transformative technology for reducing atmospheric carbon: direct air capture. And a listen to the astonishing boom in Spanish-language music.

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