Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Sri Lanka at ‘tipping point’ with risk of return to past atrocities, activists warn

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Civil rights groups say situation ‘getting worse on a daily basis’ as UN human rights chief expresses alarm over deepening impunity

Sri Lanka could descend swiftly back into violence and human rights abuses unless decisive international action is taken, the UN high commissioner for human rights and civil rights groups warned.

In a speech to the human rights council on Wednesday, Michelle Bachelet is expected to issue a stark warning that the Sri Lankan government has “closed the door” on ending impunity for past abuses and is facing a return to state repression of civil society and a militarisation of public institutions.

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Aung San Suu Kyi tattoos flourish among Myanmar’s resistance

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Studios report surge in requests for tattoos of the deposed civilian leader – and some are using their profits to support protesters

In the last three weeks, Ye, 37, has inked more images of Aung San Suu Kyi than throughout his 19 years of tattooing.

“We love and respect her because she has sacrificed so much for us,” he says, showing a photo of his latest artwork – a lifelike rendering of the deposed Myanmar leader, complete with jasmine flowers, on a woman’s back.

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HSBC looks to Asia after profits plunge 34%

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More executive roles are expected to relocate to home base of Hong Kong as part of Asia shift, where most of its earnings come from

HSBC, Britain’s biggest bank, has recorded a 34% drop in profit for 2020 as it prepares to double down on its operations in Hong Kong and China despite concern about the political crackdown in the former UK colony.

The bank said on Tuesday that pre-tax profit was down from $13.3bn (£9.4bn) in 2019 to $8.8bn in the 12 months to 31 December, while the adjusted profit before tax of $12.1bn (£8.6bn) fell 76% on the year before.

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Revealed: 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar as it gears up for World Cup

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Guardian analysis indicates shocking figure likely to be an underestimate, as preparations for 2022 tournament continue

More than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar since it won the right to host the World Cup 10 years ago, the Guardian can reveal.

The findings, compiled from government sources, mean an average of 12 migrant workers from these five south Asian nations have died each week since the night in December 2010 when the streets of Doha were filled with ecstatic crowds celebrating Qatar’s victory.

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Fears for Rohingya stranded at sea for 10 days, as engines fail and eight die

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UN calls for boat to be rescued, saying ‘immediate action’ needed to ‘prevent further tragedy’

The United Nations refugee agency has called for the immediate rescue of a group of Rohingya refugees adrift in their boat in the Andaman Sea without food or water, many of them ill and suffering from extreme dehydration.

The UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) said it did not know the exact location of the vessel and understood that some passengers had died. The boat had left southern Bangladesh about 10 days ago and experienced engine failure, it said.

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Myanmar protesters hold general strike as crowds gather for ‘five twos revolution’

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Protesters compare date – 22.2.2021 – to 8 August 1988, when military cracked down on pro-democracy rallies

Protesters across Myanmar have held a general strike, taking to the streets across the country and shutting many businesses, in one of the largest nationwide shows of opposition to the military since it seized power three weeks ago.

Crowds assembled in Yangon, Naypyidaw, Mandalay and elsewhere on Monday, despite an apparent threat from the junta that it would again use deadly violence against demonstrators.

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‘Nobody wants this job now’: the gentle leaders of China’s Uighur exiles – in pictures

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Fleeing to Kyrgyzstan in the 1960s, communities established mosques and villages but the local leaders, or dzhigit-beshchis, are a dying breed

Dzhigit-beshchi is the name Uighur people in Kyrgyzstan give to the leader they elect for their mahallah – or community. Usually it’s a respected person, mostly an elderly man.

Pushed out of China during the repressions of the 1960s, tens of thousands of Uighurs went to the former Soviet Union when these ageing leaders were just young men. Sticking closely to relatives and acquaintances who had come to Soviet cities and villages in previous waves, they built mosques and mahallahs, each with its own dzhigit-beshchi.

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Not cricket: religious divide threatens a last bastion of secular India

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Allegations against Wasim Jaffer of favouritism raise fears that anti-Muslim sentiment is infecting the game

It is often described as India’s greatest unifier, a sport that – at least on the field – has been insulated from the religious schisms that have long divided the country.

But in recent weeks cricket’s position as one of the final bastions of a secular India has come under attack, as the anti-Muslim sentiment that has been on the rise in India under the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) reared its head in an ugly cricketing scandal.

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Myanmar coup: Facebook shuts down military’s main page as well-known actor arrested

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Lu Min taken from his home on Yangon as demonstrators take to streets in Mandalay after death of two protesters there on Saturday

Myanmar police have arrested a well-known actor wanted for opposing the military coup as Facebook deleted the military’s main page, saying it breached its standards prohibiting the incitement of violence.

Lu Min was one of six celebrities who the army said on Wednesday were wanted under an anti-incitement law for encouraging civil servants to join in the protest. The charges can carry a two-year prison sentence.

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Myanmar coup: witnesses describe killing of protesters as unrest continues

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Condemnation of military comes from around world as Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest

Witnesses have described the moment Myanmar’s security forces opened fire on protesters, killing two people, as tens of thousands of people took to the streets again on Sunday in defiance of the military.

A young man and a teenage boy are believed to have been killed in Mandalay on Saturday when police, supported by frontline troops, used live ammunition to break up crowds of protesters opposing the military coup.

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Myanmar: police use rubber bullets and teargas in bloodiest day of protest yet – video

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Two anti-coup protesters in Myanmar were shot dead on Saturday by riot police who fired live rounds, local media reported. The deaths occurred in Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, after security forces ratcheted up their pressure against protesters, using water cannon, teargas, slingshots and rubber bullets

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Myanmar coup: at least two protesters shot dead by riot police

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Second reported victim, a 36-year-old carpenter, was shot in the chest and died en route to hospital

At least two anti-coup protesters in Myanmar have been shot dead by riot police, emergency workers have said, amid continuing demonstrations demanding an end to military rule and the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and others.

The deaths, in the country’s second-largest city Mandalay, mark the bloodiest day in more than two weeks of increasingly fraught protests as a civil disobedience movement grows.

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Myanmar: memorials held for protester shot by police – video report

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Anti-coup protesters in Myanmar have paid tribute to the young woman who died a day earlier after being shot by police during a demonstration against the military takeover. Impromptu memorials were held in Yangon, Mandalay and the capital city, Naypyidaw, where Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing was shot on 9 February, two days before her 20th birthday

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Myanmar protester shot in head during police crackdown dies

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Grocery store worker Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing, 20, is the first protest fatality since military took control in coup two weeks ago

A woman who was shot in the head by police during protests in Myanmar last week has died – the first protest fatality since the military took control in a coup more than two weeks ago.

Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing, 20, had been on life support since being taken to hospital on 9 February after she was hit by what doctors said was a live bullet at a protest in the capital, Naypyitaw.

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Vaccine diplomacy: west falling behind in race for influence

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While the UK and US strive for herd immunity, Russia and China are leveraging their Covid jabs

“Today it is easier to get a nuclear weapon than to get a vaccine,” the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, declared in January. He was bragging. The Balkans country had just received its first shipment of almost 1m Covid-19 vaccine doses from Sinopharm, a state-owned Chinese pharmaceutical company.

Since then, Serbia has augmented its stockpile with tens of thousands of shots of Russia’s Sputnik V, signed an agreement to build a bottling plant for the Russian vaccine and now boasts the fastest vaccination rate in continental Europe.

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‘Broken-down’ cars bring Myanmar streets to standstill in coup protest

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Protesters try to block movement of security forces and civil servants, while hackers targets military

Some of the busiest streets in Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon, have been brought to a standstill for a second day running by slow-moving and “broken-down” cars, as part of an evolving civil disobedience movement against the military coup.

Cars were parked across roads to block the movement of security forces and prevent civil servants from travelling to work. Some protesters walked in circles around a pedestrian crossing at a busy intersection. “Don’t attend the office, leave it. Join the civil disobedience movement,” protesters chanted.

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Gone fishing: the fight to save one of the world’s most elusive wild cats

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With webbed feet and a tail for a rudder, Asia’s fishing cats face shrinking habitats. But conservation efforts in West Bengal are helping it swim against the tide

For more than a decade, wildlife biologist Tiasa Adhya has spent many a day (and night) in a small wooden boat, silently gliding through dense vegetation in the wetlands and mangroves of West Bengal, scanning the banks for signs of a rarely seen wild cat – the fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus).

“Fishing cats are fascinating animals,” she says. “They have co-inhabited riverine deltas and floodplains alongside humans for centuries. Ancient cultures like the Khmer empire show evidence of fishing cats.” As co-founder of the world’s longest-running fishing cat research and conservation project, Kolkata-based Adhya is dedicated to this endangered felid, one of the least-studied and understood wildcats.

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Nepal proposes ‘ridiculous’ ban on women travelling without permission

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Activists warn new anti-trafficking law requiring permission from families to travel is evidence of ‘deep-rooted patriarchal mindset’

A proposed law in Nepal that would ban women from travelling abroad without permission from their families and local government officials has been called unconstitutional and “ridiculous”.

The proposals, introduced by the Department of Immigration last week in an attempt to prevent women being trafficked, would require all women under 40 to seek permission before they visit Africa or the Middle East for the first time.

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Fresh protests in Myanmar after Aung San Suu Kyi trial begins in secret

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Court case begins a day early, without the knowledge of her lawyer and with fresh charges

Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Myanmar’s main city Yangon on Wednesday morning to voice their anger after the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi began ahead of schedule and without the knowledge or presence of her lawyer.

Across Yangon, protesters marched with red flags signalling their support for their ousted leader, and carrying signs denouncing the military. Roads were blocked by sit down protests, and by drivers who held a “broken down” protest, parking their cars with bonnets open.

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Stateless, stuck and desperate: the militants’ wives trapped in Kashmir

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Hundreds married to men who travelled to Pakistan for militant training now find themselves stateless

Under dark skies in Kashmir’s heavily militarised town of Kupwara, Saira Javed mournfully recalled her happy childhood.

Recounting her early life in Karachi, a bustling metropolis over the border in Pakistan, she spoke vividly of her father, Abdul Latif, who would take their large family on weekend picnics and of the moonlit nights she spent dying her hands with henna.

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