4 h. ago From the archive: ‘I pleaded for help. No one wrote back’: the pain of watching my country fall to the Taliban – podcast

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.This week, from 2021: As the fighters advanced on Kabul, it was civilians who mobilised to help with the evacuation. In the absence of a plan, the hardest decisions fell on inexperienced volunteers, and the stress began to tellBy Zarlasht Halaimzai. Read by Serena Manteghi Continue reading...

Politics

21 h. ago French minister reports #SkinnyTok to regulator over anorexia concerns

Digital media minister Clara Chappaz says TikTok videos promoting extreme thinness ‘revolting and unacceptable’The French government is seeking to take action against a TikTok group promoting extreme thinness among young women and girls.France’s minister for digital media, Clara Chappaz, has reported #SkinnyTok to the country’s audiovisual and digital watchdog and the EU over concerns that the trend is body-shaming victims into anorexia and that algorithms are targeting the most vulnerable. Continue reading...

Politics

52 h. ago A ‘strange dance’: media mogul Saad Mohseni on making TV under the Taliban

Once dubbed the ‘Afghan Rupert Murdoch’, Mohseni’s media business was founded after the fall of the Taliban and is now navigating their returnSaad Mohseni wants more female faces on his Afghan TV channel. He hopes he might get a deal with the Taliban for him to air a historical drama – in which all the women have been through the menopause.“If a woman menstruates, [the showing of an uncovered female face] is haram [forbidden], right?” Mohseni said. “But as soon as they go through, you know, menopause, then you can have them uncovered. It’s ridiculous, it’s so offensive. So now we try to negotiate with [the Taliban] to do a soap opera that’s going to have these women over the age of 50. We have to try.” Continue reading...

Culture

65 h. ago Looking for the last human place on the internet? Try Google Maps

The navigation app might be built for function – but dig deeper and you’ll find a trove of inside jokes, neighbourhood quirks and charming errors• Read more in the Internet wormhole seriesThere is a certain kind of guy who looks at Google Maps for fun. I am that guy. As a kid I went through a cartography phase, drawing elaborate maps of fictional islands and poring over the family street directory in an effort to reconcile the lines and dots on the overcrowded pages with the streets, shops and friends’ houses in my mind’s eye. You could say that phase never really ended.In much the same way as some people will pull up a movie’s IMDb entry the second they start watching, any time I come across an interesting town, country or geographical oddity (which is often in the news business), I’m firing up Maps to see what topographical morsels I can uncover. I’m no GeoGuessr savant, but I’ve spent many pleasant hours puzzling over interesting enclaves and panhandles, or pootling around far-fl...

Technology

7 d. ago Mum hacks her three children to death in brutal axe attack as neighbours hear 'really loud' screams

Valentina Mytko, 29, hacked her daughter, four, and sons, eight and seven months, as another child of hers, aged 7, watched, according to the country’s Investigative Committee

Events

2 w. ago Ukrainians who fled war fear deportation under Trump: ‘I am young, I want to live’

Trump’s moves have pushed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians into a state of insecurity after they were welcomed to a safe havenNot long after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Danyil packed everything he could in a bag and traveled 15 hours by bus from the Zakarpattia region in western Ukraine to the Czech Republic.He fled the war at 17, just as the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, forbade men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country. Now aged 20, he watches from the US as the war drags on. In December, Zelenskyy said 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and another 370,000 have been wounded in the war. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Betis celebrate end of derby drought as Antony and Isco finally feel at home

Manuel Pellegrini’s team of misfits beat Sevilla in the league for the first time in seven years and celebrated in styleThis weekend, 46,731 people came to see Betis and Sevilla but the derby wasn’t until the following night – so 33 hours later they came back and did it all over again, even better. Saturday’s second-biggest attendance in Spain had watched the country’s most passionate rivals train. Sunday’s very biggest crowd saw them play, a record 58,538 fans still inside and still singing late into a night they’ll never forget. The Benito Villamarín was bouncing, smoke rising round the home fans as they belted out the club’s anthem – here we are, squashed together like cannon balls – as the players started a lap of honour. Somewhere in all the madness and the noise, Antony, stripped to the waist and sitting on the goalkeeper Adrián’s shoulders, heaved a giant flag through the air. “This is incredible,” he said, and it was.This was Antony’s first Seville derby and he’d not seen an...

Politics

3 w. ago WhatsApp warning for all UK users over 'strange' messages – what to do if you receive one

The financial team at Revolut has warned that Brits were scammed more on WhatsApp in 2024 than consumers in any other European country, with messages to watch out for

Events

3 w. ago Gay Malaysian asylum seeker wins right to stay in UK after judge says home country's ban on Pride watches shows he would be persecuted if sent there

The man, who had overstayed his visa, won after Judge Bijan Hoshi ruled that the LGBTQ+ community are subjected to 'serious discrimination' by government and society in the Asian country.

Events

3 w. ago US debt burden to top second world war peak in coming years, CBO says

Congressional fiscal watchdog’s forecasts come after Moody’s warned on the country’s public finances this week

Events