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From Our Own Correspondent: Afghanistan: Questions, Doubts and Fears

21/08/2021

Afghanistan: Questions, Doubts and Fears

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, Afghanistan: Questions, Doubts and Fears

What went wrong, and what now for Afghans? With stories from Haiti, India and France.

What went wrong, and what now for Afghans who want to get out? Plus tales from Haiti's earthquake, the 'living dead' who are still very alive in India, and the scam artists of Paris.

It’s been a week of searing and surreal images from Afghanistan after the Taliban’s lighting takeover of Kabul. The spectacle of an official Taliban news conference, televised live from the capital on Tuesday, was proof of how just how fast events have moved. The Taliban leadership may have promised forgiveness, reconciliation and protection of women’s rights. But the mood is fearful and there are still thousands of Afghans desperate to get out of the country by any means possible. Lyse Doucet has been hearing from many of them. 

As the West’s twenty-year mission to Afghanistan comes to an end, there are questions around the  world about how the international intervention, and the new political structures set up after 2001,  went so desperately wrong, so fast. Paul Adams has also been covering events and searching his own memories of time spent with foreign forces in the country for possible clues.

The latest earthquake in Haiti has inflicted more losses on a nation that’s endured plenty of them. The shocks and aftershocks last Saturday caused at least 2,200 deaths, injured more than 12,000  people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes. After the far more devastating quake back in 2010, more than 200,000 Haitians ended up living in squalid encampments in the capital, Port au Prince. This time around, the plan is to encourage survivors to stay put and rebuild, rather than run to already overburdened cities. James Clayton has been to some of the worst-affected areas in the southwest of the country.

Imagine that one ordinary day you find out that - although you feel perfectly normal - you’re officially dead. That’s the experience of a surprising number of people across India. Thousands of men and women who are very much alive are being registered as dead, often by their own relatives who are angling to inherit their property. Covid restrictions prevented Chloe Hadjimatheou from going to India to investigate in person -  but she’s been on the trail of these extraordinary stories. Finding out how easily this could happen to anyone brought home to her the extraordinary power which bureaucrats can have...

The cultural history of Paris has a vivid streak of lowlife as well as high art. From Edith Piaf, the “little sparrow” belting out songs on street corners, to Gavroche, the plucky but doomed urchin of Les Miserables – there’s often a deep affection for those characters who must live by their wits on the streets. But the city’s wiles and its tricksters have caused many an unsuspecting visitor to come unstuck. Some come away with more vivid memories of time spent in police stations, embassies and travel agents, trying to untangle their misadventures, than of great meals or cultural highlights. Christine Finn’s been keeping an eye out and her wits about her ...

Producer: Polly Hope

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