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The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 was a blow for education across the country – but especially for girls and women. Since then, the Taliban’s leaders have outlawed education for girls after sixth grade, expanded religious seminaries known as madrasas ninefold and reintroduced corporal punishment in schools.

For over 40 years, six people from Medjugorje, a small town in Bosnia-Herzegovina, have claimed to see and speak with the Virgin Mary. For almost as long, hordes of pilgrims have traveled to visit sites of the virgin’s alleged appearance and to observe the seers’ daily trances.

Reports of a phone call between the US president-elect, Donald Trump, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin (although quickly denied by the Kremlin) have given a first flavour of the tone and direction of their relationship in the immediate future. According to the Washington Post, Trump spoke with Putin on…

Armed supporters of Bolivia’s charismatic former president, Evo Morales, stormed a military facility in the central Bolivian region of Cochabamba on November 1. The group forced their way into the facility, seized weapons and ammunition and, according to the government, took more than 200 soldiers hostage.

This weighty book of lush interior shots selected and presented by Steven Brindle is a rare and delightful treat. London: Lost Interiors is an opportunity to glimpse inside the homes of London from a time well before it was common to photograph them – Victorian, Edwardian and early 20th century…

The Conversation is proud to publish this article as British sign language-first in video form with the translation written in full beneath.

European Equal Pay Day is the date when women – symbolically at least – start working for free because of the gender pay gap. This gap, of about a month and half of salary per year between men and women, means that from November 15 2024 women will effectively stop…

Today, we know of more than 5,000 exoplanets: planets outside our solar system that orbit other stars. While the effort to discover new worlds goes on, we’re steadily learning more about the exoplanets we’ve already detected: their sizes, what they’re made of and whether they have atmospheres.

The National Literacy Trust’s annual literacy survey 2025 reveals that one in three children and young people do not enjoy reading, with only 35% of eight to 18-year-olds stating that they enjoy reading in their spare time.

Faced with unmanageable traffic and health-threatening air quality, hundreds of cities across Europe are adopting measures to reduce the number of vehicles clogging their streets, with the aim of lowering air pollution levels and improving the quality of life for people who live and work there. Most are doing this…

South Africa’s finance minister, Enoch Godongwana, announced in his October mid-term budget policy statement that cabinet had approved funding for an early retirement programme to reduce the public sector wage bill. R11 billion (about US$627 million) will be allocated over the next two years to pay for the exit costs…