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Episode details

Radio 4,22 Jul 2026,56 mins

Diabetes, Lena Headey, Women's military equipment, Escaping Afghanistan

Woman's Hour

Available for over a year

According to experts at Imperial College London, England is seeing a "worrying increase" in young women in their 20s developing type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is serious and can lead to severe complications such as heart attacks and strokes. Lead researcher Dr Shivani Misra joins Anita Rani to unpick why this is happening. Actor, writer and director Lena Headey is best known for playing Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones. She has created and stars in Intimacy, a new BBC Sounds audio drama and podcast which follows intimacy coordinator Liza Simmons, whose professional life revolves around creating safe spaces and navigating consent on film sets. Her personal life is far less under control. When a dream job on a big movie production takes her to a Greek island, long-buried secrets resurface and force her to confront a troubled past. Lena talks about this new series and life after Game of Thrones. Women in the armed forces and veterans say they are still being issued ill-fitting kit that doesn’t fit their body shape. A 2021 review called for urgent improvements, but current and former service women have told the BBC key problems remain. Investigative journalist, Rebecca Ricks and Erin Grieve from NP Aerospace which makes female-adapted body armour systems discuss. When the Taliban first ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, Zahra Joya bravely disguised herself as a boy so that she could attend school. After the US-led invasion, girls were granted access to education and opportunities and Zahra went on to become a journalist, setting up Rukhshana Media to tell the stories of Afghan women. When the Taliban returned in 2021, women’s freedoms and opportunities vanished overnight, and Zahra was one of many forced to flee their homeland, forging a new life in the UK. She discusses her memoir, The Vanishing Girl of Kabul, and her continuing fight for women’s rights in Afghanistan.

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