Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Hunger could kill millions more than Covid-19, warns Oxfam

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Starvation looms from Afghanistan to Haiti as coronavirus restrictions wipe out incomes and cut food supplies

Millions of people are being pushed towards hunger by the coronavirus pandemic, which could end up killing more people through lack of food than from the illness itself, Oxfam has warned.

Closed borders, curfews and travel restrictions have disrupted food supplies and incomes in already fragile countries, forcing an extra million people closer to famine in Afghanistan and heightening the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, where two-thirds already live in hunger.

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‘We are on our own’: Bangladesh’s pregnant garment workers face the sack

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Employers are avoiding paying maternity benefits and purging union members as orders plummet during Covid-19, say activists

A few weeks ago, Kalpona Akter’s phone started vibrating. She watched with mounting dread as message after message poured in. First there was the garment worker who had been sacked for demanding personal protective equipment for his colleagues. Then pregnant women and union members started calling for help, saying they were also losing their jobs.

As Bangladesh’s garment sector reels from the economic impact of Covid-19 and the shock of £2.4bn of cancelled or suspended orders inflicted on the industry by overseas fashion brands, a wave of job losses has swept across the country. Moreover, during lockdown hundreds of thousands of workers were not paid for work they had already done.

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Farmers’ markets go hi-tech: how online sales are saving Indian farmers

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Facing the prospect of rotting crops and ruined livelihoods, Indian farmers have embraced virtual marketplaces to sell produce

When the call finally comes, the connection is so poor that Silme Marak can barely catch the words. After running upstairs to the roof of her house for a better signal, the 39-year-old farmer finally hears the first piece of good news to come her way in months: an order for 600 pineapples from a harvest that she had feared might have to be left to rot.

Marak lives in the Tura town of Meghalaya, a hilly place in north-east India whose name translates as “the abode of clouds”. She is among millions of farmers in India – agriculture contributes nearly a seventh of the country’s GDP – in despair at the prospect of seeing their produce rot as the country entered a severe lockdown in the third week of March. According to a Credit Suisse report, vegetable farmers alone have lost upwards of Rs 20,000 crore (£2.5bn).

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Trump views US troops as disposable – the Russian bounty scandal makes that clear | Simon Tisdall

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Time and again, the president has failed to protect military personnel. For Trump, he always comes first, no matter who dies

Donald Trump likes to suggest he has got the back of US soldiers battling America’s foes around the world. It was a big theme of his 2016 campaign and his West Point speech earlier this month. So great was his boundless care for America’s fighting men and women, he said, that he would halt the endless, costly foreign wars prosecuted by his predecessors – and bring them home.

Related: Trump's ties to Putin under fresh scrutiny in wake of Russia bounty reports

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Record Covid-19 cases in California as some countries prepare for ‘universal’ testing

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LA closes beaches and businesses as hospitals fill up while Bavaria announces ‘test offensive’

California has reported record new infections following its reopening as Los Angeles county ordered all beaches closed for 4 July and the re-shuttering of some businesses.

Amid warnings hospitals were filling up and others could run out of intensive care beds in the coming weeks, the state broke its record on Monday for the highest number of new coronavirus cases reported in a single day, with more than 8,000 – the third time in eight days the state has broken a record for new cases.

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EU bans Pakistan national airline flights over pilot exam cheats

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PIA will not be able to fly into the EU for at least six months because of doubts over validity of pilot licences

The European Union’s aviation safety agency announced today that Pakistan’s national airline would not be allowed to fly into Europe for at least six months after the country’s aviation minister revealed that nearly a third of Pakistani pilots had cheated during their pilot’s exams.

Pakistan International Airlines spokesman Abdullah Hafeez said PIA had not been flying to Europe because of the pandemic. But the airline had hoped to resume its flights to Oslo, Copenhagen, Paris, Barcelona and Milan within the next two months.

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Covid-19 intensifies elder abuse globally as hospitals prioritise young

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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.

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Glamour, glitz and artificially light skin: Bollywood stars in their own racism row

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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.

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Russia offered bounty to kill UK soldiers

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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.

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Afghan government backtracks over rule forcing media to reveal sources

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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.

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‘There hasn’t been rehabilitation’: Afghanistan struggles with fate of ‘Daesh wives’

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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.

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Lightning strikes kill more than 100 in India

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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.

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Pakistan Covid-19 doctors witness black market deals in blood plasma

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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.

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‘Divorce isn’t an option’: Afghan women find hope in saffron scheme

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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.

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Delhi to transform 25 luxury hotels into Covid-19 care centres

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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.

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‘My life became a disaster movie’: the Bangladesh garment factory on the brink

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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.

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India accuses China of preparing attack on border troops

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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.

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Mumbai discovers life isn’t so sweet without the workers it once ignored

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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.

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China releases 10 Indian soldiers after border clash – report

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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.

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Imran Farooq: several convicted over murder of Pakistani exile in London

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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.

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