The Taliban have managed to increase revenue from customs. It is now extremely risky to try and bribe a customs official at the border. A very striking example of this are the money transfer service run through the hawala system. One estimate reckons 700,000 jobs have been entirely lost.
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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