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Max Pearson introduces dispatches on Afghanistan’s prospects for women, the fate of a Chinese dissident, climate change in Iraq and the ethics of meat eating in the Faroe Islands.

The Taliban authorities in control of Afghanistan have recently barred women and girls from a number of public spaces – from gyms to parks – and reintroduced physical punishment for those who break the rules. Female students have also been edged out of secondary schools, while those hoping to attend university are unsure whether they’ll be able to go at all. Yogita Limaye reports from Kabul.

What happened to Gao Zhisheng? As a human rights lawyer and a prisoner of conscience, he was well known to the foreign press corps in China during the early 2000s. Despite several arrests and spells in detention, he wasn’t shy to speak out over abuses of state power. But his wife has heard no word from him since 2017, when he was released from prison. Michael Bristow asks what his case reveals about power and the law in China today.

Diyala governorate was once known as ‘the orchard of Baghdad’ – one of Iraq’s most fertile regions, famous for its harvests of citrus, dates, pomegranates and grapes. But after a year of devastating drought, Leila Molana Allen has seen how some of the country's best farmland has now turned to dust.

While on the Faroe Islands, in the windy North Atlantic, the weather has been uncommonly wet this year – making the annual autumn mustering of the sheep through its mountainous terrain even more slippery than usual. Tim Ecott joined local farmers – and witnessed a whale hunt – as the Faroese prepared their larders to last the winter.

Presenter: Max Pearson
Producer: Polly Hope