Perspective

As Iranians continue to brave a deadly crackdown to protest against their regime, Iranian exiles living abroad have joined the movement in any way they can. For French-Iranian opera singer and composer Ariana Vafadari, that’s meant rallying support through music. She left Iran at age five and was later deeply affected by the assassination of her father, a leader of Iran's Zoroastrian community. Much of her music incorporates that philosophy, which she describes as one based on freedoms and equality between women and men. She joined us for Perspective to mark the six-month anniversary of Mahsa Amini's death and the start of the women-led protests.

As Tropical Cyclone Freddy leaves around 100 people dead across Malawi amid a trail of destruction, a charity in Scotland is already doing its bit to try to mitigate the effects of climate change there. Malawi has been highlighted as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. At the COP26 summit in Glasgow in 2021, an initial £2 million was pledged by Scotland in "loss and damage" funding, followed by another £5 million at last year's summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. In Perspective, we spoke to Ben Wilson from SCIAF, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, one of the charities helping to spend the money.

Since the start of the year, Republican lawmakers have put forward hundreds of bills in dozens of US states targeting transgender people and other members of the LGBT community. Many of them restrict access to gender-affirming healthcare, which research shows is crucial to the wellbeing and survival of trans people. According to activist and researcher Erin Reed, the current wave of anti-trans legislation is the result of a "sustained fear campaign" led by far-right groups. She joined us for Perspective to discuss the importance of gender-affirming care, the main reasons that people detransition, and problems with media coverage in outlets like The New York Times.

Nigerian crime is synonymous with cyber crime, and variants of the original so-called 419 scam. These are emails where the suspect claims to be a prince or princess without access to their riches, and promise to share their windfall if we help them out financially. The victim's bank account is then emptied and the suspect is never heard from again. Our guest is a journalist who has spent years uncovering the massive scale of a Nigerian mafia that dominates parts of Marseille and is globally connected. A new book called "Mafia Africa" is the work of Célia Lebur from French news agency Agence France-Presse and Joan Tilouine, the head of investigations at Africa Intelligence. Célia spoke to FRANCE 24's Gavin Lee about the book.

From brutal attacks to the spread of zoonotic illnesses, urbanisation has made relationships between people and wild animals increasingly conflictual. But in rare cases, humans and wildlife can coexist peacefully and even rely on one another, in relationships mirroring those between parents and children. In the Oscar-nominated documentary short film "The Elephant Whisperers", Kartiki Gonsalves documents the intimate connection between a couple and an orphaned elephant in southern India. She joined us for Perspective.

Sunday March 5 marks the 70th anniversary of the death of Joseph Stalin. The sudden demise of the Soviet dictator marked the end of an era, but it wasn't the major turning point it could have been in US-Soviet relations. In his book "The Last Days of Stalin", activist and scholar Joshua Rubenstein writes that the administration of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower missed a narrow opportunity to improve relations with the Soviet Union. He joined us for Perspective to discuss Stalin's final months, the dictator's death and its repercussions.

The Persian-Kurdish word "Kolbar" can be translated to "one who carries a load". It's used to describe those who carry goods illegally across the mountainous border between Iran and Iraq, and elsewhere in the region. Kolbars in Iranian Kurdistan turn to the job out of economic desperation and dozens of them die each year – the majority shot by Iranian border guards. A new graphic novel from Iranian cartoonist Mana Neyestani sheds light on their difficult circumstances. "Les Oiseaux de papier" or "Paper Birds" is a gripping account of one Kolbar expedition, interwoven with a love story that also condemns Iranian patriarchy. Author Mana Neyestani joined us for Perspective.

Thousands of illegal gold miners are accused of destroying the lives of the indigenous Yanomami people, who have lived for centuries in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil. Miners have flooded into the area, poisoning rivers, attacking people and even raping women and girls. Under Brazil's new government, the issue is now coming under the spotlight, as federal police have opened an investigation into possible genocide. In Perspective, we spoke to Fiona Watson, Director of Research and Advocacy at Survival International.

The woman behind a new Oscar-nominated film that documents the lives of two French volcanologists has described it as the story of a "love triangle" between two human beings and volcanoes. Katia and Maurice Krafft roamed the planet for two decades, chasing volcanic eruptions and taking hundreds of hours of film of their exploits, before their tragic death in 1991. Their footage has now been turned into the documentary "Fire of Love". Director, writer and producer Sara Dosa spoke to us on Perspective.

The economic situations in Lebanon and Egypt are both dire, but for now the ramifications are more manageable in Egypt. That's the view of Timothy Kaldas from the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. He told FRANCE 24 that while parallels can be drawn between the countries, there is reason for more hope in Egypt, simply because the country is too big to fail. This despite Egyptians facing inflation of 26 percent, with food prices rising by up to 50 percent. Kaldas joined us for Perspective.