Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Pakistan to allow private firms to import coronavirus vaccines

Posted on by

Vaccines also exempt from price caps in divisive move that health experts fear will deepen inequality

Pakistan will allow private companies to import coronavirus vaccines and has exempted the vaccines from price caps in a divisive move that health experts fear will create vast inequalities in access.

The country has been scrambling to secure vaccine supplies but so far only the Chinese-made Sinopharm treatment is being deployed. This month 500,000 doses were donated to Pakistan.

Continue reading...

‘They want division’: on patrol with Myanmar’s civilian night watch

Posted on by

Since the coup, people in Yangon have been patrolling the streets to protect neighbours from overnight military raids and criminals

Sitting next to a makeshift barricade of bamboo and recycled metal, Aung Than, 30, a tour operator, says he is ready to die for his street. “A life on this street is worth more than mine,” he says. “I am ready to exchange my life to protect them if it comes to that.”

Protests against the 1 February coup have grown in recent days in Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon. Meanwhile, nights are filled with an eerie silence, punctuated by bursts of clashing pots and pans in support of the detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the clamour of mobs chasing down lone figures.

Continue reading...

India: activist arrested over protest ‘toolkit’ shared by Greta Thunberg

Posted on by

Disha Ravi charged with sedition, accused editing document on how to support India’s farmers that was tweeted by Swedish climate activist

Indian police have charged a 22-year-old climate activist with sedition over accusations she edited and circulated a document tweeted by climate activist Greta Thunberg relating to India’s ongoing farmer protests.

Swedish climate activist Thunberg tweeted her backing this month for the farmers, who have been demonstrating since December against agricultural reforms they say will harm their livelihood but benefit large corporations. She shared a document which she said was a toolkit to create and spread awareness about the farmers’ complaints.

Continue reading...

Myanmar: tanks roll into cities as internet shut down

Posted on by

Diplomats warn ‘the world is watching’ amid fears for fate of pro-democracy protesters

Myanmar’s internet has been cut overnight on Sunday, hours after armoured vehicles rolled into several cities, prompting fears for the fate of protesters and warnings by diplomats that “the world is watching”.

Armoured cars appeared on the streets of Yangon, Myitkyina and Sittwe on Sunday, live footage broadcast online by local media showed, in the heaviest show of force so far by the military since it staged a coup on 1 February.

Continue reading...

‘We cannot hope for anything good’: Myanmar coup sparks despair for Rohingya

Posted on by

While Aung San Suu Kyi defended a genocidal campaign against the Muslim minority, refugees fear military rule will end dreams of a return home

For the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar, news of the fall of Aung San Suu Kyi after the military coup was bittersweet.

After all, no community had felt more betrayed by Myanmar’s civilian leader. When she came to power in 2015, the belief was that she would overturn decades of persecution and finally bring about peace and citizenship, following in the footsteps of her father, Gen Aung San.

Continue reading...

‘We took a huge risk’: the Indian firm making more Covid jabs than anyone

Posted on by

Adar Poonawalla, chief executive of the Serum Institute of India, on vaccines, regulation and what comes next

Adar Poonawalla, 40, is the chief executive of the Serum Institute of India (SII), the Pune-based, family-owned vaccine manufacturer that is producing more Covid-19 vaccines by dose than any other in the world. For now it’s the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine rolling off its production lines, but SII has signed contracts with three other developers – Novavax, Codagenix and SpyBiotech – all of which have candidates in the works.

Did you ever imagine you would be making vaccines for a global pandemic?

Continue reading...

Huge blasts on Afghanistan-Iran border spotted from space

Posted on by

At least 60 injured in explosions at Islam Qala crossing that consumed 500 natural gas and fuel trucks

A fuel tanker exploded on Saturday at the Islam Qala crossing in Afghanistan’s western Herat province on the Iranian border, injuring at least 60 people and causing a massive fire that consumed more than 500 trucks carrying natural gas and fuel, according to Afghan officials and Iranian state media.

Two explosions at the border crossing were powerful enough to be spotted from space by Nasa satellites. One blast erupted around 1.10pm Afghan time (8.40am GMT), the next around a half hour later at 1.42pm local (9.12am GMT).

Continue reading...

Myanmar army chiefs order arrest of leading coup opponents

Posted on by

Junta suspends rules restraining security forces as nationwide protests continue

Myanmar’s junta has suspended laws constraining security forces from detaining suspects or searching private property without court approval and ordered the arrest of well-known backers of mass protests against the coup.

The announcements came on Saturday, the eighth day of country-wide demonstrations against the 1 February takeover and detention of the elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, which halted an unsteady transition to democracy that began in 2011.

Continue reading...

Why Myanmar protesters see Aung San Suu Kyi as their greatest hope – video explainer

Posted on by

Hundreds of thousands of people have been protesting across Myanmar since the army overthrew the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and detained most senior leaders on 1 February. 

Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to power prompted hope she could end years of ethnic strife in Myanmar, but she has been accused of standing by while genocide was committed against the Rohingya people. The Guardian's south Asia correspondent, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, explains why – despite her fall from grace internationally – Aung San Suu Kyi is seen by so many protesters as the only person who can still save them from military rule

Continue reading...

‘I did what I thought was right’: a Myanmar protester voices her fears for the future

Posted on by

Almost two weeks after the military coup, one demonstrator explains why she is still out on the streets

In previous years on Union Day – the Myanmar public holiday marking the agreement between ethnic leaders on 12 February 1947 to forge a unified country – Khin* had worn her traditional htamein, a snug maxiskirt. But since it would prevent her from running away if the police opened fire, this year she opted for loose trousers, large sunglasses, a baseball cap and face mask.

For the seventh consecutive morning she found a full-scale rebellion playing out on the streets of Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon. A couple of thousand railway workers marched near her home as Khin, in her early 30s, reflected on a phone call she had just received from her father, a high-ranking official in the army, which seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government on 1 February.

Continue reading...

Roaring crowds, roti and Rihanna: the view from a Delhi farm protest camp

Posted on by

As rhetoric rises on both sides, Indian farmers at the Singhu camp say they are going nowhere

Puffing out his chest, his lime green turban luminescent in the morning sun, Surinder Singh made it clear he was a man who would not easily be moved. “We will stay here five years, 10 years if we have to,” the farmer said with a steely smile. “As long as it takes.”

A roar of approval greeted his words from fellow farmers who had gathered for breakfast at Singh’s chai stand at the Singhu camp, one of three main protest camps on the outskirts of Delhi. Singh, a small-scale farmer from India’s northern state of Punjab, is just one of hundreds of thousands to have made Singhu his home since November, living out of the back of his now fully furnished tractor trailer.

Continue reading...

Pakistan ends death penalty for prisoners with severe mental health problems

Posted on by

Supreme court ruling welcomed by rights activists who say it opens the way to broader prison reforms

In a landmark decision, Pakistan’s supreme court ruled this week that prisoners with serious mental health problems cannot be executed for their crimes.

The verdict was hailed by rights activists, who said it laid the groundwork for broader prison reforms in the country.

Continue reading...

Election officials detained in Myanmar ‘in bid to prove fraud’

Posted on by

A senior polling officer and a human rights watchdog say arrests part of military’s attempt to discredit vote

Myanmar’s military government is detaining election commission officials in night-time raids and asking them to provide evidence that November’s election was rigged, according to a senior member of the organisation and a human rights watchdog.

The Tatmadaw justified its 1 February coup by alleging widespread irregularities in the vote, won decisively by Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, but their claims have been rejected by the Union Election Commission (UEC), the organisation responsible for administering elections in Myanmar.

Continue reading...

Ties with Myanmar military put pressure on western companies

Posted on by

Activists criticise oil and gas companies that have set up highly profitable joint ventures with army chiefs to exploit mineral resources

Western companies are facing growing calls to break ties with businesses run by Myanmar’s military after last week’s coup threatened to cast the impoverished south-east Asian country back into full-blown dictatorship.

The Japanese drinks company Kirin Holdings has announced it will abandon its involvement with a Myanmar brewery after a six-year partnership because of its close links to the military.

Continue reading...

‘It’s as if there’s no Covid’: Nepal defies pandemic amid a broken economy

Posted on by

Cases appear low and sports venues are packed, but protests are on the rise as jobs are lost and personal debt soars

Traffic jams and soaring pollution levels are back. Political leaders are organising mass rallies, far more focused on fighting each other than any virus. If poorer Nepalis are struggling with the dire economic fallout from Covid-19, on the surface, at least, it appears daily life in the capital, Kathmandu, is back to normal.

“It’s as if nothing has happened. The nightclubs are crowded. Schools and colleges are reopening. Sports venues are full. It doesn’t seem like there is any Covid,” says Sameer Mani Dixit, a public health specialist. “It defies logic.”

Continue reading...

Biden orders sanctions on Myanmar generals as key Aung San Suu Kyi aide detained

Posted on by

US prevents generals from accessing $1bn in government funds as Kyaw Tint Swe held amid new wave of arrests

US President Joe Biden has approved an executive order for new sanctions on those responsible for the military coup in Myanmar, as the army detained another key aide to civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Fresh protests took place on Thursday following days of demonstrations in major cities and towns inside Myanmar calling for the military to cede power following its 1 February coup.

Continue reading...

Family of girl, 12, forced to marry abductor condemn Pakistan authorities

Posted on by

Criticism follows release of 29-year-old who kept girl chained in cattle pen, in latest case highlighting abuses of religious minorities

The family of a 12-year-old girl in Pakistan who was chained up in a cattle pen for more than six months, after allegedly being kidnapped and forced to marry her abductor, have attacked the authorities for refusing to act.

The case is among those now being examined by a government inquiry into the forced conversions of religious minority women and girls, after police released the man, saying they believed the girl had married him of her own free will.

Continue reading...

Myanmar protesters return to streets in huge numbers amid police defections

Posted on by

Protests swell across country, with dozens of police officers choosing to join protesters in call for reversal of coup

Protesters have turned out in huge numbers across Myanmar, a day after police instigated the most violent scenes yet in demonstrations against a military coup that removed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

An estimated 100,000 people gathered in the commercial capital Yangon on Wednesday, according to witnesses, with many more marching across the country.

Continue reading...

Myanmar: gunfire heard as police and protesters clash – video

Posted on by

Police in Myanmar have fired water cannon into crowds protesting against the 1 February coup that overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.  

It is the fourth consecutive day of mass protest, despite the military banning gatherings of more than five people

Continue reading...

Autism in India: how a pioneering jobs scheme is opening up opportunities

Posted on by

Company says adapting recruitment processes for neurodiverse groups disproportionately affected by unemployment has led to increased innovation

Talking to people can be difficult for Rishabh Birla, but his last job demanded he did a lot of it. He has autism and finds making eye contact uncomfortable. For Birla, the rules of conversation are puzzling and he sometimes veers off course, alarming the other person.

A 25-year-old postgraduate, Birla had been working at a cosmetics startup in Thane, not far from Mumbai. “The job involved communicating with different clients to keep track of their orders. It was exhausting to interact with so people every day,” he says.

Continue reading...