Older patients turned away or left untreated, while domestic abuse is also rising, leading charity reports
When Souzi Bondeko’s grandfather started showing symptoms of Covid-19 and was struggling to breathe, she took him to a hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, where he was put on a ventilator.
She dashed home to get some food and returned to be told by a member of staff that he had been taken off the machine as it it was needed elsewhere.
Continue reading...India’s film-makers accused of hypocrisy for supporting Black Lives Matter while keeping silent on bias for fair complexions
The Bollywood film industry is a global phenomenon built on glitz and glamour. But it has also faced accusations of being among the biggest purveyors of racism for glorifying fair complexions in its hyperbolic love stories and catchy songs. Now, amid anger over what some consider Bollywood’s hypocritical stance on Black Lives Matter, the industry has finally been forced to confront one of its most enduring taboos.
Bollywood has witnessed considerable liberalisation in recent years. But while taboos such as same-sex relationships have been relegated to a past in which stars hid behind a rose bush to steal a kiss, the industry’s determination to cling to colourism – prejudice against people of your own race on the basis of skin colour – has become a cause of anger and dismay.
Continue reading...Moscow accused of trying to give money to the Taliban as part of its campaign to destabilise America and its allies
The Russian intelligence unit behind the attempted murder in Salisbury of the former double agent Sergei Skripal secretly offered to pay Taliban-linked fighters to kill British and American soldiers in Afghanistan, according to US reports.
The revelation piles pressure on the UK to take robust action against the Kremlin amid continuing anger over the government’s delay in publishing a key report on Russian attempts to destabilise the UK.
Continue reading...Amendments to country’s media law revoked after outcry from press
An outcry by the Afghan press over amendments to the country’s media law has seen the government call off initially approved changes.
The newly revoked amendments included a rule that would force media to reveal sources to the government without a court order.
Continue reading...The Afghan government is facing hard decisions over the futures of hundreds of detained radicalised women and their children
The “Daesh wives” from the Afghan branch of Islamic State look very young. Most are already mothers.
Hundreds of them have fled combat, airstrikes and near-starvation in eastern Afghanistan where the faction of Isis known as Islamic State in Khorasan (ISK) has been under fierce bombardment from Afghan and US special forces, as well as involved in violent clashes with rival militants the Taliban.
Continue reading...Bihar state records one of the highest daily tolls from lightning in recent years as monsoon begins
At least 107 people have died from lightning strikes in northern and eastern India, officials said, during the early stages of the annual monsoon season.
Some 83 people were killed in the impoverished eastern state of Bihar after being struck by lightning, and another 24 died in northern Uttar Pradesh state. Dozens more were injured, officials said.
Continue reading...Patients are looking for cure as healthcare system is on brink of collapse, say doctors
As coronavirus chaos has enveloped Pakistan, with hospitals overflowing, doctors dying and infections escalating at an unmanageable rate, a dangerous black market in blood plasma has emerged.
The blood plasma of recovered coronavirus patients is now being sold for upwards of £3,000 to those who are desperately looking for a cure, at a time when doctors say Pakistan’s healthcare system is on the brink of collapse.
Continue reading...Drug addiction is common among men in many villages, leaving their wives to develop survival strategies for the family
Anita Zadid would divorce her husband if she could. Eight years into the marriage, her husband turned to opium and crystal meth because he couldn’t find work. He’s now addicted.
As well as taking care of her three children, Zadid, who was married at 14, says she also has to support her spouse. “Divorcing him is not an option in rural Afghanistan, but I mentally left my marriage many years ago,” the 30-year-old tells the Guardian. Sadly, she’s not the only woman to do so.
Continue reading...Fearful hotel workers asked to take on role of hospital support staff as cases in Delhi rise
Staff at luxury hotels in Delhi are to start welcoming guests not with traditional garlands but with a medical gown.
Amid growing concerns that there are not enough hospital beds to cope with the rising number of cases, the Delhi government has become the first in the country to requisition its hotels. Starting this week, 25 establishments will be repurposed as emergency Covid-19 care centres for patients with mild to moderate symptoms. In a sign of how overwhelmed medical staff are becoming, hotel employees are being trained in case they have to administer some of the care.
Continue reading...One factory owner tells how coronavirus cancellations by UK brands have seen him struggle to pay wages
As high streets across England opened this week and hundreds of people jostled through the doors of clothing shops, thousands of miles away in Chittagong, Bangladesh, Mostafiz Uddin is worrying about how to pay his workers’ wages.
At Denim Expert Ltd, the sustainable clothing company he founded in 2009 as a sustainable apparels clothing company, hundreds of boxes of jeans are crammed against walls and packed to the ceiling. These boxes contain 38,000 pairs of Burton jeans, worth more than £200,000 that were ready for shipment in early March. But as the UK went into lockdown that month, an email pinged into his inbox that tore his life apart.
Continue reading...Delhi says Chinese dammed a river and lay in wait for clash in which 20 Indians died
India has accused Chinese troops of meticulously preparing an attack on its soldiers on the treacherous Himalayan border, claiming they erected a tent on the Indian side, dammed a river, brought in machinery and then lay in wait with stones and batons wrapped in barbed wire.
The incident on Monday night, in which 20 Indian soldiers died and 76 were injured, was the worst violence between India and China for 45 years. China has not said whether it sustained any casualties.
Continue reading...Lockdown precipitated an exodus of day labourers and “wallahs” but as monsoon season breaks their loss is being felt
As the monsoon lashes Mumbai and black clouds darken the skyline, the city is in the grip of nostalgia for the men who used to keep daily life ticking as rhythmically and comfortingly as a Swiss watch. Men who are missing.
The men who cleared the drains of silt so that the rains don’t cause flooding and water-borne diseases such as leptospirosis. The electricians who came to fix breakdowns caused by wind and rain. The sanitation workers who used to spray neighbourhoods with mosquito repellent before the monsoon to prevent vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and chikungunya. All are missing even though the monsoon officially arrived last weekend.
Continue reading...Indian media report release came after high-level talks between the India army and the PLA
China has freed 10 Indian soldiers seized in a high-altitude border clash in the Himalayas which left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead, media reports said on Friday.
The release follows several rounds of talks between the two sides in a bid to ease tensions after the battle on Monday, in which scores of troops from the two sides fought with nail-studded batons and hurled rocks at each other.
Continue reading...Pakistani court gives MQM party members life sentences for stabbing political rival in 2010
A Pakistani court has convicted several men over the murder of a prominent exiled politician in north London 10 years ago.
Dr Imran Farooq, 50, was repeatedly stabbed and bludgeoned with a house brick in Edgware as he returned home from work on 16 September 2010. The killing of Farooq, a founding member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), sparked rioting in his native city of Karachi.
Continue reading...Use of invasive digital and physical tracking measures soars as the pandemic spreads
Extensive surveillance measures introduced around the world during the coronavirus outbreak have widened and become entrenched, digital rights experts have said, three months after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic.
The measures have often been billed as temporary necessities rushed into place to help track infections, but governments have been accused of denting civil rights with the widespread use of techniques such as phone monitoring, contact tracing apps, and physical surveillance such as CCTV with facial recognition.
Continue reading...India shocked by Himalayan border clash in which unarmed troops fought in the dark
The hand-to-hand combat lasted hours, on steep, jagged terrain, with iron bars, rocks and fists. Neither side carried guns. Most of the soldiers killed in the worst fighting between India and China in 60 years lost their footing or were knocked from the narrow Himalayan ridge, plunging to their deaths.
India has reacted with shock and caution to the loss of at least 20 soldiers on its disputed border with China, with images of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, burned in Indian cities.
Continue reading...Protesters in India burned effigies of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and called for boycotts of Chinese goods on Wednesday after a deadly clash at a disputed border site in the western Himalayas left 20 Indian soldiers dead. The deaths were the first since the last major border clash in 1967 between the nuclear-armed neighbours - also the world's two most populous countries - which have been unable to settle the dispute along their lengthy frontier
At least 20 died after soldiers fought with clubs and rocks along the disputed border, making de-escalation hard for the nuclear states
The forces of two nuclear weapons states have set about each other with clubs and rocks at one of the most forbidding flashpoints in the world, in a bloody incident that highlights the constant dangers posed by expansionist nationalism.
Related: India says 20 soldiers killed on disputed Himalayan border with China
Continue reading...First loss of life in area in at least 45 years comes amid renewed dispute
Twenty members of India’s armed forces have been killed in a “violent face-off” with Chinese soldiers on their disputed Himalayan border in the worst military crisis between the two countries in nearly 60 years.
The deaths are the first loss of life in the border area since 1975, and come amid a renewed dispute between the two countries in recent weeks. Indian and Chinese soldiers, who often do not carry weapons in the area to avoid escalating conflicts, have brawled, detained each other and deployed forces and equipment in the western Himalayas in recent weeks.
Continue reading...Tributes for the ‘bright young actor’ flow from colleagues, cricketers and India’s prime minister
Popular Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead at his Mumbai residence on Sunday, police and Indian media reports have said.
Initial reports, citing police sources, said the 34-year-old’s body was found in his apartment in suburban Bandra.
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