Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Photographing poverty’s pandemic: ‘Afghans have learned to live with fear’

Posted on by

In the second of our series, Stefanie Glinski looks at how life in the normally bustling city of Kabul has been reshaped by lockdown, with roads and playgrounds empty as people try to keep their distance

Driving up one of Kabul’s many steep hills, dotted with colourfully painted houses and surrounded by the snow-capped Hindu Kush mountains, the Afghan capital looks just like any other day.

Children fly kites in the mild spring breeze, families take to their roofs to watch the sunset, bakers light their ovens to make fresh bread.

Continue reading...

Bangladesh rescues hundreds of Rohingya drifting at sea for nearly two months

Posted on by

About 400 were on board, and more than 30 had died during perilous attempt to reach Malaysia

Bangladesh’s coastguard says it has rescued at least 382 “starving” Rohingya refugees floating in a large boat in the country’s territorial waters after nearly two months at sea.

Acting on a tip-off, a patrol launched a three-day search for the boat, locating it on Wednesday night off its south-eastern coast, spokesman Lieutenant Shah Zia Rahman said.

Continue reading...

Arcadia Group cancels ‘over £100m’ of orders as garment industry faces ruin

Posted on by

As owner of brands including Topshop and Dorothy Perkins cancels unshipped orders, thousands will be left without income, warn rights groups

The Arcadia Group, which owns brands including Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge, is estimated to have cancelled in excess of £100m of existing clothing orders worldwide from suppliers in some of the world’s poorest countries as the global garment sector faces ruin.

According to data from the Bangladesh Garments and Manufacturing Association (BGMEA), the Arcadia Group has cancelled £9m of orders in Bangladesh alone.

Continue reading...

‘Will we die of hunger?’: how Covid-19 lockdowns imperil street children

Posted on by

For millions of young people, coronavirus restrictions have made access to food, water and shelter even more precarious

Timothy, a teenager on the streets of Mombasa, wonders how he will eat. “Rich people can stay home … because they have a store well stocked with food,” he says. “For a survivor on the street your store is your stomach.”

However, says another, if the rumours are true and street children are arrested in the city during the Covid-19 crisis, he’d be happy to go to Shimo women’s prison, because there “you are sure to get free food, shelter and medical services”.

Continue reading...

‘It’s a very worrying time’: Sri Lanka’s recovery interrupted by coronavirus

Posted on by

As the anniversary of the bombs that shook the country looms, survivors working to build harmony face multiple challenges

A year on from the Easter bombs that killed more than 250 people, Sri Lanka is now under pandemic lockdown and facing rising pressure.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whose decision to include individuals accused of atrocities during the country’s 25-year civil war among his political appointments has been a source of international opprobrium, is now under fire over the country’s repressive, militarised response to Covid-19.

Continue reading...

UK crime agency loses case against ex-Kazakh president’s family

Posted on by

Judge overturns unexplained wealth orders that led to freezing of London properties

Britain’s National Crime Agency has lost a high court attempt to force the daughter and grandson of a former president of Kazakhstan to explain where they got the money to buy £80m of property in London.

Last year, the NCA froze three of the family’s properties, including a mansion on north London’s so-called Billionaire’s Row with an underground swimming pool and cinema, over claims they were acquired using proceeds from unlawful activity.

Continue reading...

Killer of Bangladesh independence leader arrested after 45 years on run

Posted on by

Ex-military captain one of dozens sentenced to death for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder

Police in Bangladesh have arrested a fugitive killer of the country’s independence leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, nearly 45 years after the brutal assassination, the country’s home minister has said.

Abdul Majed, a former military captain, was arrested in the capital, Dhaka, Asaduzzaman Khan said, adding that the arrest was “the biggest gift” for Bangladesh this year.

Continue reading...

Primark announces wage fund for garment workers

Posted on by

Pledge comes in response to claims that order cancellations to minimise Covid-19 losses have hurt millions of workers in the developing world

Primark, one of the UK’s most popular retailers, has announced it will create a fund to help pay the wages of the millions of garment workers affected by its decision to cancel tens of millions of pounds worth of clothing orders from factories in developing countries across the world.

The pledge followed sustained criticism of the fashion retailer after data from the Bangladeshi and Garment Exporters Association (BGMEA) revealed it had cancelled all orders already placed with suppliers.

Continue reading...

Bangladesh sends food aid to sex workers as industry goes into lockdown

Posted on by

Up to 100,000 women could be left unable to support families as brothels are closed amid fears of Covid-19 outbreak

The government of Bangladesh has started sending emergency food and aid to the tens of thousands of women working in the country’s commercial sex industry as brothels across the country close.

To try to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus, the authorities have ordered the lockdown of the sex industry, closing the country’s biggest brothel in Goalanda in the Rajbari District of Dhaka until 5 April along with many others across the country.

Continue reading...

Drive-in church lets South Koreans congregate safely – video

Posted on by

Christians at a church in South Korea are taking part in 'drive-in' services to comply with the country's strict social-distancing rules. While most services have been taking place online, the Seoul City Church decided to also hold a drive-in.

South Korea has largely managed to its epidemic under control, but outbreaks still occur in churches, hospitals and nursing homes

Continue reading...

Whether in the UK or the developing world, we’re not all in coronavirus together

Posted on by

In the slums of Delhi or Lagos, social distancing is a dream while social exclusion is all too real and pernicious

‘The virus does not discriminate,” suggested Michael Gove after both Boris Johnson and the health secretary, Matt Hancock, were struck down by Covid-19. But societies do. And in so doing, they ensure that the devastation wreaked by the virus is not equally shared.

We can see this in the way that the low paid both disproportionately have to continue to work and are more likely to be laid off; in the sacking of an Amazon worker for leading a protest against unsafe conditions; in the rich having access to coronavirus tests denied to even most NHS workers.

Continue reading...

‘I just want to go home’: the desperate millions hit by Modi’s brutal lockdown

Posted on by

The Indian prime minister’s handling of the pandemic has heaped more misery on the country’s poorest citizens

For more than a decade, Begum Jan had managed to survive on the streets of Kolkata. A longtime wheelchair-user, she had a specific spot on a busy street. Rickshaw drivers and passers-by always made sure she had something to eat.

But last week, for the first time since she became homeless after falling ill with tuberculosis and losing her job as a housemaid, the 62-year-old was in danger of starving.

Continue reading...

Men acquitted of Daniel Pearl murder kept in detention in Pakistan

Posted on by

Provincial government issues order despite court’s ruling to overturn the four’s convictions

Pakistani authorities have ordered four men including a Briton convicted of the 2002 murder of the US journalist Daniel Pearl to be detained for three months despite a lower court’s ruling to overturn their convictions.

The high court in the province of Sindh on Thursday acquitted the four, including Briton Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was sentenced to death in 2002 for masterminding Pearl’s murder. The other three were sentenced to life.

Continue reading...

Primark among retailers cancelling £2.4bn orders in ‘catastrophic’ move for Bangladesh

Posted on by

Coronavirus cutbacks amount to a ‘wholesale abandonment’ of garment workers, says labour rights group

More than a million Bangaldeshi garment workers have been sent home without pay or have lost their jobs after western clothing brands cancelled or suspended £2.4bn of existing orders in the wake of the Covid-19 epidemic, according to data from the Bangladeshi and Garment Exporters Association (BGMEA).

Primark and the Edinburgh Woollen Mill are among retailers that have collectively cancelled £1.4bn and suspended an additional £1bn of orders as they scramble to minimise losses. This includes nearly £1.3bn of orders that were already in production or had been completed, according to BGMEA.

Continue reading...

Daniel Pearl murder: Pakistani court overturns death sentence of accused

Posted on by

British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh set to be released in coming days

A Pakistani court has commuted the death sentence of a British-born man convicted of the 2002 kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, and acquitted three co-accused.

At least four people were convicted in connection with Pearl’s murder, including Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh who was sentenced to death in 2002 for masterminding the killing. He has been in jail for 18 years awaiting the outcome of an appeal.

Continue reading...

‘No profit, no food’: lockdown in Kabul prompts hunger fears

Posted on by

Residents of Afghanistan’s capital face stark choice between providing food for their families and limiting risk of coronavirus

The streets of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, were packed on Friday; a hectic bustling in the markets and shops, pious whispers ringing from prayer gatherings at the mosques, the skies full of kites that children were flying.

But on Saturday the city of around six million people went into lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus in one of the poorest and most war-torn countries in the world.

Continue reading...

Myanmar blocks hundreds of news sites and threatens editor with life in jail

Posted on by

Fears abuses may go unreported after journalist arrest under terrorism laws for interview with rebel group Arakan Army

Myanmar has cracked down on journalists, blocking news websites and maintaining a longstanding internet ban in some areas, prompting warnings it is becoming increasingly hard to monitor abuses in the country.

On Tuesday, Myanmar charged a journalist under a terrorism law for publishing an interview with the Arakan Army, a rebel group that demands greater autonomy for the state’s ethnic Rakhine people. The group had recently been labelled a terrorist organisation.

Continue reading...

Exiled Pakistani journalist goes missing in Sweden

Posted on by

Sajid Hussain, who wrote about rights abuses in Balochistan, had been granted Swedish asylum

A prominent Pakistani journalist who fled the country after receiving death threats has gone missing in Sweden where he had been granted political asylum.

Sajid Hussain, 39, went into self-imposed exile in 2012 after his reporting on forced disappearances and human rights abuses in the turbulent region of Balochistan had led to death threats. He had continued to run an online newspaper, the Balochistan Times, from abroad covering the same topics.

Continue reading...

Coronavirus live news: rise in Italy, US and France deaths takes global confirmed toll past 40,000

Posted on by

Worldwide confirmed cases pass 800,000 as Spain and Russia also report record single-day death tolls and Mexico wakes to state of emergency

Do you ever run out of questions, you people? Trump asks a room full of reporters.

Trump is talking about the impeachment. “They probably illegally impeached me... you don’t hear much about that nowadays because everyone’s talking about the virus,” which he is happy about, the US president says.

“The democrats their whole live their whole being their whole existence was to try and get me out of office any way they can even if it was a phony deal.”

"I think I'm getting A pluses now for how I handled myself during a phony impeachment," Trump says.

Continue reading...

Divided Delhi under lockdown: ‘If coronavirus doesn’t kill me, hunger will’

Posted on by

India’s shutdown is catastrophic for Muslims driven from their homes by sectarian carnage and now without food or shelter

It wasn’t possible for Mohammed Idrish to watch Narendra Modi’s address to the nation last Tuesday exhorting 1.3 billion Indians to stay at home. His TV was looted along with everything else in his home in Delhi during the recent anti-Muslim riots in the Indian capital.

When Idrish, a carpenter, heard about Modi urging Indians to stay at home to stop coronavirus spreading, he shook his head again and again. “I don’t understand … I don’t understand. Doesn’t he know we have no home?”

Continue reading...