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Malala: I never imagined women’s rights would be lost so easily

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A bullet failed to silence her, now Malala Yousafzai is lending her voice to the women of Afghanistan.
In just a few years since the Taliban retook control of the country, women’s rights have been eroded to the point where even singing is banned.
Malala has a personal history with the Taliban across the border in Pakistan, after a gunman from the hardline Islamist group shot her as she sat on a school bus.
The speed of change in Afghanistan, if not the brutality, has surprised Malala, who since that near-fatal shooting in 2012 has campaigned for equality.
“I never imagined that the rights of women would be compromised so easily,” Malala tells BBC Asian Network.
“A lot of girls are finding themselves in a very hopeless, depressing situation where they do not see any way out,” the 27-year-old Nobel Prize Winner says.
“The future looks very dark to them.”
In 2021, the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan, 20 years after a US-led invasion toppled their regime in the fallout of the 9/11 attacks in New York.
In the three-and-a-half years since Western forces left the country, “morality laws” have meant women in Afghanistan have lost dozens of rights.
A dress code means they must be fully covered and strict rules have banned them from travelling without a male chaperone or looking a man in the eye unless they’re related by blood or marriage.
“The restrictions are just so extreme that it does not even make sense to anybody,” says Malala.
The United Nations (UN) says the rules amount to “gender apartheid” – a system where people face economic and social discrimination based on their sex and something human rights group Amnesty International wants recognised as crime under international law.

But the rules have been defended by the Taliban, which claims they’re accepted in Afghan society and that the international community should respect “Islamic laws, traditions and the values of Muslim societies”.

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X refused to take down video viewed by Southport killer

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Australia’s internet regulator says X refused to take down a video of a high-profile stabbing in Sydney that was watched by Axel Rudakubana just before he murdered three young girls in Southport.
The body, eSafety, said it “noted with great sadness” that Rudakubana viewed the violent footage of the attempted murder of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.
It said other major tech firms complied with its request to take the video down, but X – owned by Elon Musk – only blocked it in Australia, meaning Rudakubana was able to view it minutes before leaving his home to carry out his deadly attack.
The 18-year-old has been sentenced to a minimum of 52 years for the murders.
X has been contacted for comment.
Police officers who investigated last July’s Southport murders – which sparked riots across England – discovered a number of devices during a search of the 18-year-old’s home in Banks, Lancashire.
They have said it could take years to uncover what was in Rudakubana’s internet browsing history, which he deleted before he left the house to carry out his attack.
A search on X for the stabbing of the bishop was the only thing that remained, police have said.
He was attacked in the Sydney suburb of Wakeley in April 2024 – an incident deemed an act of terror by the police.
The attack on the bishop during mass at the The Good Shepherd Church sparked unrest in the Australian city.

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Bigmouth buffalo: The mysterious fish that live for a century and don’t decline with age

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Recent findings show bigmouth buffalo fish have perplexingly long lives and appear to get healthier as they age. But scientists are worried their population is about to crash.

If you ever find yourself on the shores of Minnesota’s Rice Lake in May time, you may be able to spot swarms of large fish bodies mingling among the wild rice plants in water barely a few feet deep.
These are bigmouth buffalo fish, and they are the world’s longest-lived freshwater fish. Some live for over 100 years.
Every year, these huge fish – which can weigh more than 50lb (23kg) – traverse through Rice River to spawn and reproduce in the lake. But the regularity of this spawning belies a hidden conservation concern: for more than six decades now, no new generations of young fish here have made it to adulthood.

Bigmouth buffalo have remained understudied for decades. In the last few years, however, scientists have begun to realise how unique these huge and incredibly long-lived fish truly are – even as they also uncover how imperilled they may be.

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How an epic series on Asia’s wildlife was filmed

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Filming the BBC’s landmark series Asia took its crew on a four-year-long odyssey from the open ocean to the “roof of the world”.

From frozen mountains to parched deserts, and lush tropical rainforest to vast grassland steppes – Asia is Earth’s largest continent and home to an incredible array of environments.
Perhaps because of that sheer size and variety, until last year the BBC had never devoted a wildlife series entirely to it. The vastness, the crowded megacities and the extreme diversity of environments makes it harder to encapsule in a handful of episodes.
The Natural History Unit’s landmark series Asia took four years to make. “Many parts of Asia are extremely remote, largely unknown, or frequently off-limits,” producer Matthew Wright says. “Its wildlife is less well-studied than that of Africa and the Americas, so we had fewer leads to go on when we started our research.”
“We started by scouring scientific papers, books, websites and social media looking for stories. We spoke to colleagues, conservationists and tour guides too. Once running orders were drawn up, we spent two years and over 2,500 days filming,” said Wright.

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