The Taliban government of Afghanistan has ordered an indefinite ban on university education for women. The main surprise was that the situation, particularly in Kabul, wasn't as bad as I'd been expecting. It's still a congested, busy city full of people.
Their return to rule is unequivocally bad for the country’s women and girls. But wholesale collapse has not come and some aspects of government have improved; it turns out threats of grotesque violence change behaviours. We investigate the curious case of Morocco’s absent king—and his unlikely mixed-martial-artist pals. And how the mobile phone has shaped cinema for half a century.
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