About this episode

Christiane Amanpour discusses the impact of the Taliban's return on Afghan women and girls with Lyse Doucet, who shares insights from her recent reporting in Kabul and Iran.

Five years after the Taliban swept back into Kabul, just how devastating has the impact been on the lives of Afghanistan's women and girls? And is the world simply choosing to look away? Christiane is joined by the BBC's Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet, who has just returned from reporting in Kabul. Having covered Afghanistan for decades, Lyse tells Christiane what she found on her latest visit, describes the systematic erasure of women and girls from public life, and answers the hardest question of all: is Afghanistan any better off now than it was before the allied invasion in 2001? Plus, is it time for Trump to be given more of the blame for the chaotic allied withdrawal in 2021? Then the two of them turn to Iran. Lyse is one of only a handful of Western journalists to have reported from inside the country this year, following the regime's crackdown on its own people in January and the outbreak of the US-Israeli war in February. She gives listeners a rare picture of life inside Iran right now: whether the regime has emerged stronger or weaker, and whether ordinary Iranians blame their own leaders or the foreign powers who bombed them. Lyse also discusses her book…

People in this episode

Host: Christiane Amanpour

Guest: Lyse Doucet

Topics covered

• Taliban
• Afghanistan
• women's rights
• Iran
• journalism
• US foreign policy

Keywords

• Taliban
• Afghanistan
• women
• Lyse Doucet
• Iran
• journalism
• US withdrawal
• public life
• foreign policy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: BBC

Books & works: The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People's History of Afghanistan

Places: Afghanistan, Iran

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