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The Amanpour Hour

Interview With Former Special Inspector General For Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko; Interview With Afghan Women's Rights Activist Mahbouba Seraj; Interview With Venezuelan Conductor Gustavo Dudamel; Colombia Earthquake: Miracles And Nightmares As Volunteers Search Through Rubble; Interview With "Users" Author And British House Of Lords Member Beeban Kidron; Carly Simon Returns With First Album In 18 Years. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired August 15, 2026 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:35]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. And welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR. Here's where we're headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: An anniversary etched in pain for the women of Afghanistan. Their rights erased Five years since the U.S. Pulled out and the Taliban took over.

from Kabul, I speak to activist Mahbouba Seraj, and from Maine, John Sopko, who was the U.S. government Afghan watchdog.

Then --

The extraordinary conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, moving philharmonic orchestras from West to East Coast. The artistic director tells us how classical music builds bridges and creates harmony.

And on the scene in Colombia, after a deadly earthquake, volunteers flood in to help pull miracles out of the nightmarish rubble.

Also on the program, lawsuits against the social media giants -- children's rights activist and British lawmaker Beeban Kidron tells me they must be held to account.

Plus, from my archive --

"The guards here push me and said, go home, Auntie. I was furious and I threw off my burka and I said, I'm not anyone's auntie. I'm a military officer."

Afghanistan then and now -- seeing up close how the Taliban is erasing women's progress.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

Five years ago today, the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan. The result -- what the U.N. calls systematic gender apartheid. This came after a disastrous U.S. withdrawal spearheaded by Trump's 1.0 handover and chaotically administered by the Biden administration.

The consequences have been catastrophic for the rights of women and girls there, blasting away at every law and custom that the U.S.-led presence enabled over 20 years.

More than 2 million Afghan girls have now been banned from schools, while women have been pushed out of the workplace and forbidden from speaking in public spaces.

It is impossible for women and girls to leave unwanted relationships, and husbands are allowed to beat their wives as long as they don't break any bones.

So as the country marks this somber milestone, a return to medieval rule, can the Taliban be held accountable? And is there hope for Afghan women and girls?

I ask activist Mahbouba Seraj and the former U.S. government's special inspector general for Afghanistan, John Sopko.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Both of you, welcome to the program.

Let me ask you, John Sopko, after all these years and all that you've done to take account and keep account of what's going on behalf of the U.S. government, how are you feeling five years later after all this money, all this effort by the U.S. and all the progress that was made there, especially for women and girls?

JOHN SOPKO, FORMER SPECIAL INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AFGHANISTAN RECONSTRUCTION: I'm depressed and saddened. I know a lot of Afghans who haven't made it out. I know a lot of women who haven't made it out, who are still hiding or they're stuck in the pipeline.

So, it is a sad, depressing time. And it's tragic. It's basically tragic. I mean, it is -- to be very blunt, it's hell if you're a woman in Afghanistan.

And I don't see the International Community, I definitely don't see this government, the Trump administration, doing anything, anything at all about it. If anything, they're creating a bigger mess for the poor people of Afghanistan.

AMANPOUR: Well, you might mean because of the, you know, cutback of USAID and even those humanitarian projects being cut back.

So, Mahbouba, can you tell us what it's like for women? Some can work. I know some are on the television. They have to be masked. But by and large, they are erased. I mean, I read somewhere today that some women don't even leave their house more than twice a month. [11:04:48]

MAHBOUBA SERAJ, AFGHAN WOMEN'S RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Yes, that's true. Why should they go on the streets? What for? I mean, they really -- they really -- they don't have to go. They don't need to go. They don't -- because they're not welcome. You know, they're treated badly if they ever get their hands on them, you know, by the wise and virtue people.

And then, you know -- and to do what? They don't have money to buy anything. They don't have any place to go to. They're not allowed to.

So, why should they walk on the streets? They don't want to get out. So, they're staying home.

But this is all done by force. This is the thing that is going on and nobody wants to admit it. It's by force, Ms. Amanpour. It's not because they are willing to do that. It's by force.

And it's been happening by force. From day one, it's been happening by force.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, John, we're going to go back a few years now to 2021 and what President Biden said about the August 31 date, which he pushed up to August 15th. And let's just take a listen. And I'll ask you about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The assumption was that more than 300,000 Afghan national security forces that we had trained over the past two decades and equipped would be a strong adversary in their civil wars with the Taliban.

That assumption that the Afghan government would be able to hold on for a period of time beyond military drawdown turned out not to be accurate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Really, yes, turned out not to be right. You were trying to sound the alarm, John, back then. Did it fall on deaf ears?

SOPKO: Within hours of the collapse of Afghanistan, I remember, I think it was the PR person for the Defense Department was claiming "I have evidence".

He didn't have any evidence. I mean, if he had read any of our reports, going back to almost when I started 12 years before, he would not have made that.

It was happy talk. And that's the unfortunate thing. And you see the same thing right now with Iran. It's happy talk. You know, we're blasting them out. Everything's going well and all that.

Well, there's nobody actually doing oversight in Iraq -- in Iran, excuse me. Nobody really doing effective oversight anymore. So, the American people and Congress, shame on them, are not doing the oversight to find out what's going on there and what's going on in Afghanistan. That is still -- we still have responsibility.

AMANPOUR: What is not being held accountable? What accounting is not being done that you're concerned about over the Iran war?

SOPKO: Here we have a Congress, particularly the appropriators -- the chairman of the Senate Appropriations, the chairman of the House Appropriations, who control the moneybag. They control the money.

And you're telling me all of a sudden, they discover we're out of weapons? I mean, what is going on? I have not seen any effective oversight from Congress. I have not seen any effective oversight from the IGs after they fired 16 of us back in 2025.

Those are simple things. I mean, this is common sense.

And then in the midst of this war, Congress goes on a recess for a number of months. If you had a house and it's raining and you've got a hole in the roof and you call somebody to come in to fix it and he says, oh, ok, I got to leave now. I got to go on vacation for two months.

What are the Americans supposed to think about their Congress? Remember, Congress is supposed to oversee the executive branch. Where have they been since this war in Iran started?

AMANPOUR: I want to go back quickly to Mahbouba Seraj. Are you surprised that those promises that the Taliban made, that 2.0 would be different from 1.0, just simply collapsed?

SERAJ: Yes, I am and I am not, to tell you the honest truth. Because the world -- the world knew the Taliban. 2.0 and 1.0 and all of that doesn't really mean anything.

I mean, these people are not -- they are not a political group. They are a religious group. Because they have an ideology, and they work according to that ideology. And that ideology is not going to let them to give women any kind of freedom. That's very simple.

But the thing that I want you to please, you know, tell the world. We know that the world did not want to hear anything about the Afghan women negatively from the government of Taliban. They didn't.

They were ready to say everything is fine, so we are going to give the women of Afghanistan and all of its problems to the Taliban and we want to forget it. That's where the world was and that's where the world is today also.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[11:09:49]

AMANPOUR: Coming up later on the show, we see the impact of the Taliban's takeover up close as we dig into my archives to see how women embraced freedom after their fall and the pain they've been suffering since the Taliban returned.

And after a break, grabbing a box seat at The Proms with one of the world's greatest conductors. Gustavo Dudamel tells me about leaving the L.A. Philharmonic to lead New York's and the devastating earthquakes in his homeland, Venezuela.

[11:10:17]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

Each and every summer, a classical music phenomenon called The Proms takes over London in joyful symphony. Now, at 131 years old, the festival at the Royal Albert Hall has a hot ticket. One of the main draws this year is the Venezuelan prodigy Gustavo Dudamel, conducting the L.A. Philharmonic, an orchestra he's taken from strength to strength since he became its artistic director 17 years ago.

And he's going out on a high as he heads to the East Coast to lead the New York Philharmonic next. It is a triumphant moment for Dudamel, who first picked up the baton at age 11.

But it is also tinged with tragedy. His homeland, Venezuela, is still struggling from the devastating earthquakes that hit in June, killing more than 6,000 people.

After attending a beautiful Beethoven concert, I met Dudamel at the Royal Albert Hall.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Gustavo Dudamel, welcome back to our program.

GUSTAVO DUDAMEL, VENEZUELAN CONDUCTOR: Thank you very much.

AMANPOUR: So, if I could say, you are the "it" man of the conducting world or the cultural world right now. You're about to take over the New York Philharmonic from the L.A. Philharmonic. You, you know, conducted the Muppets in halftime at the World Cup Final, and you're literally everywhere.

What does it feel like at this stage of your career to be so relevant still and so much part of the cultural dialogue?

DUDAMEL: I go back to my childhood, and I didn't want to be a famous conductor conducting the big orchestras. For me, it was like to be with my friends and having fun making music and enjoying what we were doing.

And it's exactly the same thing. When I have the chance to do this kind of crazy and amazing things, it's exactly the same feeling.

And I think it's good in the sense of, for young people, I'm not anymore as young as I was before, you know, to be a reference, but for them to see that, you know, also classical music, it has a very fun and joyful side, which is not --

AMANPOUR: So, you know, you were talking about being young and how this has been in your blood, in your body since you were a young man.

Your father was very musical. And in Venezuela, you joined the El Sistema system, which was created to allow disadvantaged youth to partake in this kind of elitist thing, which is classical music.

But it blows my mind when I read that, you know, you conducted your first orchestra at the age of 11.

DUDAMEL: Yes, yes. But that is crazy.

AMANPOUR: I mean, how did that come about? Tell me about it.

DUDAMEL: Well, it's -- I was conducting before at home. The recordings and my toys, that is -- that was --

AMANPOUR: You were conducting your toys?

DUDAMEL: My toys.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

DUDAMEL: And that -- and with the big orchestras. I always, when I arrived to rehearse to these huge orchestras, I said, I conducted you when I was seven, eight years old, and I rehearsed. I destroyed the LPs because I was going back, stopping, it's not together, this softer, and I went back and back and back.

AMANPOUR: Let me just ask you about Venezuela, because, boy, oh, boy, Sistema kind of put it on the cultural map, but right now it's on the political map.

When we spoke before, you were very reluctant to talk politically, but things have really moved on. The United States, essentially, is running Venezuela.

What do you think when you think about your country's future right now?

DUDAMEL: Well, look, as you know, it's a very difficult situation, but at the same time, I think, you know, we have to take an opportunity to get out of this very tragic and difficult situation. I think that people are tired of politics.

If you talk to a Venezuelan, you know, that is there, they are tired about that polemic thing of politics. They want to get out of the situation.

And I think it have to come a new time when we rebuild the country, not only economically, but through the education of people, through a new vision of a new Venezuela that is not only that we are great people, good people, resilient people that do, if not, you know, we are strong and we can build something but we have to be able to listen to each other first, you know, to respect each other, to make justice, and then to create something that, you know, work, you know.

[11:19:50]

AMANPOUR: You knew the Chavistas, you knew, you know, Delcy, and now you know the United States, you've been there for 17 years in Los Angeles, you know, with the Philharmonic. I mean, you're a major figure there.

And you are also an immigrant at a time when immigrants are under massive pressure and attack by this particular government, and actually, frankly, previous ones, but especially by this one. How do you resolve that in your mind?

DUDAMEL: It's incredible, because we live in a world that everything is happening so fast that, you know, we are getting like addict to the bad things, you know, to have that information and that. So, we have to open a space where it's not that empathy, you know. And empathy, when you have empathy, you don't have to agree with the other, you know, but you listen to the other. You don't have to respect that, the opinion, but you listen and you create your space to create a bridge and a balance between the two opinions. If not, where we can arrive, you know.

AMANPOUR: Obviously, Venezuela had a catastrophic couple of earthquakes, and you are -- one of your last performances with the L.A. Philharmonic is to do a concert for Venezuela. Where will that take place? How do you feel doing that for your own country? What do they need?

DUDAMEL: Well, it's catastrophic because this is like something like, you know, we have one crisis, and it comes another one that it create this very difficult situation.

But of course, we have to unite forces and create, you know, ways to support all of the situation, which it will take a lot of time to recover. Because the thing is that sometimes things happens, and then in few days, people forget because there are other things happening.

So, that is why for me, it's taking time to build something that we can think in rebuilding in the future.

And look what happened also in Colombia just a few days ago. I think this concert is going to be very special.

AMANPOUR: Now, it's no secret that L.A. on the West Coast and New York on the East Coast are competing on everything, including their philharmonics.

What made you want to take the New York job?

DUDAMEL: Well, I think -- it is because I think 17 years, 20 years with the L.A. Philharmonic, it has been such an amazing journey. I don't see this as an end. It's not the end of the book. It's an end of a chapter.

It's a place that I love. I love New York since I came the first time. And I have the chance, you know, to create also a new home, but not leaving -- you never leave your home. You know, it's always your home.

AMANPOUR: Gustavo Dudamel, thank you so much for being with us.

DUDAMEL: Thank you so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And Dudamel will host the benefit concert of Venezuela next Sunday at the Hollywood Bowl. And The Proms is available on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds for viewers in the U.K.

He also mentioned the Colombia earthquake.

When we come back -- from the wreckage, stories of hope are still emerging.

[11:23:11]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

This week, a massive earthquake struck Colombia, Venezuela's neighbor and the death toll keeps rising, mobilizing teams of volunteers to pick up even the faintest signs of life beneath the rubble. And some daring rescues have brought some much-needed relief as CNN's David Culver reports on the scene from western Colombia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're headed now to a southern part of Cali, where we're told there are active rescues underway, including just a few hours ago where someone was pulled out alive.

You can hear people still right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh yes.

CULVER: Well, they won't -- ok, he said you can still hear people, so let's go see.

Just handed us masks. They said please put these on because they're worried about asbestos and anything else that's in the air that we're also seeing some of this dust.

We've been told what we're looking at here was an apartment building that was about four stories high.

You can see the rooftop pool, the blue tiles over there, now about a story and a half up in the air. So, it has totally pancaked down, collapsing into the basement of this apartment complex.

Looking into the collapsed rubble, Harold Valencia recognizes something.

You can see your dad's mattress.

HAROLD VALENCIA, SEARCHING FOR FATHER IN THE RUBBLE: Exactly, which is that one that he's showing right now.

CULVER: Have you -- have you heard anything? Is there any movement or anything?

VALENCIA: No. For two days and we don't hear anything.

CULVER: Harold flew in Tuesday from his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And he isn't the only one here doubling as a first responder.

CULVER: And how old are the two people still missing, roughly?

JAVIER TABARES, VOLUNTEER: Late teens?

CULVER: Teenagers.

TABARES: Yes.

CULVER: And a brother and sister.

TABARES: Yes.

CULVER: How do you even process this moment? Like --

TABARES: There's no way to process it. Like you don't process it. You're just here, dealing. Like if you're at home, maybe you may have to find some way to cope with it.

Like there's no time to process this type of stuff. Like you have to be here helping. Otherwise, there's nothing else to do.

[11:29:48]

CULVER: Here in Cali, Colombia's third largest city with a population roughly the size of Houston, Texas, even folks working at hotels or taxi drivers even, are splitting their day between their actual work and helping with rescues, motivated by scenes like this.

A man handing off a baby boy from within the rubble, dust covered and struggling to breathe but he's alive.

You saw the baby's little head. He's not a first responder. He works in a bank and he was just around the corner and rushed down the street where the collapse and rescue, is still underway for several others.

And he says he goes there and he hears -- What did the voice say?

The voice says, "I'm here. I'm here with a baby."

Brian and several others immediately go in. Over the course of three to five minutes, they're able to pull the baby out.

How's the baby right now?

Stable condition right now as well as the dad.

The only thing is that the mom is still missing.

More than 130 miles north, we watched on for hours as this closeknit community dragged huge slabs of concrete from this collapsed apartment in Pereira.

All of these folks are volunteers.

Late in the evening, their hands reached a 32-year-old woman clinging to life. Her stepmother held vigil there for more than 24 hours. She tells us her daughter suffered heart failure and shattered nearly every bone imaginable, but says she's hopeful she'll make it.

From that same wreckage someone's beloved pet also pulled out alive.

Back here in Cali, this moment reality briefly surfaces for Harold.

VALENCIA: Trying to get my dad one way or the other. That's it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: David Culver, reporting from Colombia.

After a break, social media giants could face thousands of lawsuits over alleged dangers. I speak to children's online rights campaigner, the British Baroness Beeban Kidron about her new book and her relentless struggle for the most vulnerable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEEBAN KIDRON, AUTHOR, BRITISH HOUSE OF LORDS MEMBER: We have to keep the tech companies accountable for their products because if this was an air fryer, I tell, we would have recalled it by now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:32:17]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

This week, a U.S. court ruled that Meta and other social media firms will indeed face thousands of lawsuits that allege social media is designed to get young people hooked. Here in the U.K., a social media ban for children was one of the last great policy pushes by then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

But my next guest thinks beyond bans, the tech giants need to take far more responsibility and face far more accountability.

Once a film director of hits like "Bridget Jones 2", Baroness Beeban Kidron is now a leading voice on children's rights online and a U.K. lawmaker. She serves in the upper chamber of Britain's parliament known as the

House of Lords. And she joined me to discuss her new book, "Users", where she explains how to fight back against unregulated big tech.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Beeban Kidron, welcome back to our program.

KIDRON: Lovely to be with you.

AMANPOUR: So look, let's just start with "Users". And it's a gripping tale. Tell me about the name. Who is it aimed at, that name?

KIDRON: So, the "Users" in the book are really the story of how the tech companies sort of hijacked society, how they took over our personal lives, our children, business, and so on.

And it's that story about how we were all Internet-ed and what the costs of that are. And it really offers a framework for fighting back, I suppose.

So, the "users" are them, not us.

AMANPOUR: Yes, them. Exactly. Not the addicts.

KIDRON: Exactly.

AMANPOUR: Look, we said it could be Prime Minister Keir Starmer's lasting legacy. But, and there's a big but, his Australian counterpart who did this in their country, they have found, according to research, that the current generation of 16 and unders are finding workarounds. A lot of them, like 80 percent of them.

What does that say to you?

KIDRON: Well, I think there's a number of lessons in it. I think the first thing to say is that Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, did the world a huge favor.

He just went, "Not on my watch, no toxic products in the hands of children. I will take responsibility for doing something."

Now, a lot of us didn't think he came at it exactly the right way, that he has put this issue right at the center of politics.

So, I think the first thing, before we get into ban, not ban, is how have we got here? How have we got, in plain sight of parents and politicians and the media, to a situation where half the kids in the U.K. have seen a beheading? That girls feel anxious and upset about their bodies?

[11:39:51]

KIDRON: That, actually, I have to work with police, specialist police force to try and work a way around the A.I.-child sexual abuse that is being created at scale. So, the first question we have to ask is, what do we want for our kids? Is this right?

And one of the things, if you look at it, you go, hang on a minute, this is a product. Someone here is running a company, making money, and they're making money on the back of this experience of our kids.

So I think we do need to look at the tech companies. We can't do this by saying, oh, you know, parents, police your kids. Kids, don't do any transgressive things.

We know what kids are like. We know that they'll try. We know that, actually, this lot, who are quite addicted on these products, will try and get back to them.

But I think we have to do two things. One is we have to keep the tech companies accountable for their products, because if this was an air fryer, I tell you, we would have recalled it by now. Yes,

I think the second thing that we have to do is take the age thing off the parents and say, actually, companies, you know, if we find 16- year-olds on your site, it's you who's going to be in trouble, not the kid.

And so, when I think about the ban, I think about it as, how do we ban tech companies from putting toxic products in the hands of our children?

AMANPOUR: You remember, of course, the California court recently issued that landmark ruling against Meta and the risks that its products pose, you know, basically saying that they were addictive.

You say that all of this sort of momentum could be a tobacco moment, i.e., when the tobacco companies were discovered to have lied about the addictive nature of their product, they were outed in a big, big way, and things have completely changed in that domain.

Do you think that we're there yet, that the fight back, as you suggest, is reaching that critical juncture?

KIDRON: I think it is. And I think there's a couple of reasons. First of all, the court cases in the U.S. are really central to what's going on, because it stopped being about freedom of speech, just like in the tobacco, as you say, it stopped being about personal responsibility. It was about how do you design your product? What did you know about it? When did you know it? And why are you hurting people?

And I think that that is a very clear differentiation, and the U.S. courts appear now to be willing to look at the design of the product. That is huge.

I think there's something else, because the book starts with children, but what happens to children online does not stay online, and what happens to children eventually happens to the rest of us.

And it goes into the questions of, you know, information security, job displacement, and so on.

And as you build up and you think, hang on a minute, this is costing me my job, this is costing my child their childhood, this is costing me any semblance of shared truth in the world and all the problems that we see out of that, people are beginning to go, I'm not sure that free was such a fabulous deal.

AMANPOUR: Yes. I mean, it is an extraordinary tale. And are you optimistic, in a word?

KIDRON: You know what? I am. And I really try and show that in the book. You know, there's some pretty hard stories there.

But the last chapter is really about what we have to insist. We do live in democracies, a lot of us. And, you know, I've been doing this thing recently. I've spoken to a lot of people. I've asked, did they vote on tech policy last time?

No one, Christiane, no one has actually put their hand up. So, we have to make this a public issue. And we have to remember that in an attention economy, our attention is the fuel.

AMANPOUR: Well, you've had a very good last word there.

Beeban Kidron, thank you so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And the book "Users" is out now.

Coming up from military officers to TV presenters, as we've said, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 expelled the Taliban and ushered in a time when women could work, learn and dream again.

We look back through my archive at the troubling trend that's now erasing those women from public view since Trump and Biden pulled U.S. forces out five years ago.

[11:44:20]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

Earlier, we discussed this unhappy five-year anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and the catastrophic destruction of women's rights that it's unleashed.

I started covering Afghanistan when the Taliban first took over in 1996. I focused a lot on the women and girls who've borne the brunt of their medieval theocracy.

And I was there when the U.S. toppled the Taliban after 9/11, and I reported on the significant progress women could now enjoy from being allowed back into the classroom, into the workforce, and even into the ranks of the military. Here's an excerpt from Kabul in 2002.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: General Khatool Mohammadzai rolls through the gates at Kabul's air force base, happy to be back on the job after five years.

[11:49:52]

AMANPOUR: Khatool, as she's known, is a woman, the first and only female parachutist in Afghanistan. Under the Taliban, this highly- decorated veteran of more than 500 jumps was forced back home. There, she spent the years tailoring and selling handicrafts.

"When I came back after the Taliban fell," she says, "the guards here pushed me and said, go home, auntie."

"I was furious and I threw off my burka and I said, I'm not anyone's auntie. I'm a military officer."

Today she's in charge of the Air Force physical fitness program, handing out achievement certificates and overseeing the sports training.

Her subordinates salute and tell us they are proud to have her back.

"We feel very good," says air force pilot Colonel Mohammed. "We have a general who is a woman and a symbol for Afghanistan."

Across town, at a new education training program called Ayna, 20 young girls are learning to become television journalists.

The Taliban virtually banned photography. Today, their assignment is camera work.

Downstairs, girls are learning to read and write. Since the Taliban rule ended, the United Nations say girls now make up 30 percent of all children back at school.

But for the very poor, the situation remains dire. Only about 6 percent of Afghan women are literate.

With few jobs around these days, even more war widows are begging on the streets. And still, the health care for the women of this country is among the worst in the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: But even those health and mortality stats were improving. But now, 20 years later, overnight on August 15th, 2021, Kabul fell to the Taliban. Trump had negotiated withdrawal of all U.S. troops, which then unfolded catastrophically under the Biden administration.

And all of a sudden, all that hard work and progress for women and girls evaporated.

Here's my report one year into Taliban 2.0.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: For the past five months, Khatera Ahmadi (ph) has been anchoring the morning news on Tolo TV. But this might be the last time she can show her face on air.

The morning editorial meeting starts with worried discussion about mandatory masking. Station director Khpalwak Sapai says he'd even consider just shutting down and leaving.

But then he thought female staff who want to carry on anchoring with a mask can. While those who don't will get other jobs behind the scenes.

KHPALWAK SAPAI, THEN-STATION DIRECTOR, TOLO TV: We will leave the last decision up to them. They will make their own decision.

AMANPOUR: And it's a tough decision for these women who brave the new Taliban regime to stay on the air, who've already adjusted their head scarves to hide their hair, and who now fear a steep slide back to the Middle Ages.

Khatera says she's so stressed she couldn't even present her program properly.

KHATERA AHMADI, TOLONEWS ANCHOR: It's not clear, even if we appear with the burka, maybe they will say that women's voices are forbidden. They want women to be removed from the screen. They are afraid of an educated woman.

AMANPOUR: Afghan women are afraid that this is the beginning of your efforts to erase them from the workspace. They're afraid that if they wear the mask, the next thing you will say is their voice cannot be heard publicly.

Back at ToloNews, these female anchors are distraught.

"What should we do," cries Tahmina, "We don't know. We were ready to fight to the last to perform our work. But they don't allow us."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Well, the presenter Khatera Ahmadi's fears did come true and she fled to Pakistan. But despite the draconian restrictions, other women remain. At ToloNews reporting the news while, yes, wearing a mask.

They could be called the lucky ones though, because the harshest Taliban edicts ban women's faces and even their voices from being seen and heard in public.

When we come back, the bittersweet return of a great American voice. Carly Simon's latest album is next.

[11:54:17]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And finally, nobody does it better and she's not so vain. She is the singer Carly Simon who makes her return this weekend with her first album of original songs since 2008, while also battling a debilitating disease.

(MUSIC)

AMANPOUR: That's called "Howl". The very beginning of her new album comes in waves, featuring Simon's trademark poetry and her wit.

[11:59:45]

AMANPOUR: And it also comes at a time of great personal struggle for the 82-year-old artist, who recently revealed that she's got Parkinson's disease.

In a touching and candid open letter, she also discussed composing her new work, writing, "There were melodies, verses and ideas written down and tucked away for some unknown future when I would have the time and attention to finish them." "Apparently," she says, "that future is now."

And that's all we have time for now. Don't forget, you can find all of our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you again next week.