Girls interrupted: Afghanistan

<p>When the Taliban resumed power, there were hopes that women might not be as excluded, repressed and abused as they were previously. Those hopes <a href="https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/04/02/the-taliban-are-pushing-females-out-of-public-life?utm_campaign=a.io&amp;utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&amp;utm_source=theintelligence&amp;utm_content=discovery.content.anonymous.tr_shownotes_na-na_article&amp;utm_term=sa.listeners" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">have faded</a>. As smartphone sales plateau, tech giants are furiously searching for new platforms to conquer. Augmented and virtual reality are the new <a href="https://www.economist.com/business/2022/04/09/from-apple-to-google-big-tech-is-building-vr-and-ar-headsets" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">battlefields</a>. And the rise of giga-everything: how the scale of science <a href="https://www.economist.com/culture/2022/04/09/as-the-scale-of-science-expands-so-does-the-language-of-prefixes?utm_campaign=a.io&amp;utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&amp;utm_source=theintelligence&amp;utm_content=discovery.content.anonymous.tr_shownotes_na-na_article&amp;utm_term=sa.listeners" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">drives</a> linguistic innovation. For full access to print, digital and audio editions of <em>The Economist</em>, subscribe here <a href="http://www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer</a></p> &#10;&nbsp;<br /><hr><p style='color: grey; font - size: 0.75em; '>See <a style='color: grey; ' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for privacy and opt-out information.</p>