Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Soap and solace scarce as Sri Lanka’s tea pickers toil on amid lockdown

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Workers in a sector with a history of exploitation face hazards including a lack of masks and overcrowded accommodation

In Sri Lanka, police have been enforcing tough lockdown measures and a strict curfew since March. The country’s inspector general has instructed police to take action against social media users who criticise the government or spread “malicious” pandemic information.

An exception has been made, however, for the country’s tea pickers. A caveat on the country’s lockdown order, issued on 20 March, read: “Paddy farming and plantation, including work on tea small holdings and fishing activities, are permitted in any district.”

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Why South Korea’s coronavirus death toll is comparatively low – video explainer

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​On 29 February​, South Korea reported a peak of 909 new Covid-19 cases and was suffering one of the worst outbreaks outside of China. But this week, the government announced a single-digit number of new cases for the first time in almost two months. As of 22 April, there were 238 confirmed coronavirus-related deaths in South Korea.

Experts say that the country is one of few to succeed in 'flattening the curve' despite never having a formal lockdown in place​. And with life slowly beginning to return to something like normality, Seoul-based journalist Nemo Kim has been looking at what lessons can be learned

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Two Muslim students face ‘bogus’ charges of inciting Delhi riots

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Lawyers say pair were peacefully protesting against Indian citizenship act

Delhi police have been accused of slapping two Muslim student activists with “bogus” charges of conspiring to incite the recent riots, the worst religious violence in India’s capital for decades, and in which the police were accused of being complicit.

Meeran Haider and Safoora Zargar, students at Delhi’s Muslim-majority Jamia Millia Islamia University, were charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which is usually reserved for terrorist activity and means they can be held for six months.

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Domestic abuse: ‘Women in Herat may survive coronavirus but not lockdown’

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Violence against women is endemic in Afghanistan; with services closed by the pandemic, those working with abused women are terrified for their clients

Every morning Marzia Akbari, a 25-year-old psychologist from the western Afghan city of Herat, wakes up, picks up her phone and starts calling women. Most calls go unanswered. Since Herat was put in lockdown two weeks ago, Akbari’s work as one of Afghanistan’s only healthcare workers helping victims of domestic abuse has ground to a halt and many of the women she was trying to protect have disappeared.

“I’m very scared for them,” she says. “Many women in Herat may survive coronavirus but won’t survive the lockdown.”

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Kingfisher Airlines tycoon loses appeal against extradition to India

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Multimillionaire ‘king of the good times’ Vijay Mallya faces allegations of £1bn fraud

The Indian multimillionaire businessman Vijay Mallya has lost his appeal against a decision to extradite him to India to face allegations of a £1bn fraud at his now defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

High court judges on Monday rejected Mallya’s appeal against a 2018 decision granting his extradition, ruling that there was a “prima facie case of fraud by false representation”.

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The good neighbour who wants to iron out the problems of the weekly wash

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A low-tech washing machine offers a way to wash where there is limited access to power and running water

With a plastic drum, plywood and a few secret components, a London-based engineer has created a rudimentary washing machine that he says will ease the workload for families with little power or water.

Nav Sawnhey has designed a £24 crank-handled machinefor people in places without reliable, affordable power.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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”.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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Killer of Bangladesh independence leader arrested after 45 years on run

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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.

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Primark announces wage fund for garment workers

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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.

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

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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.

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Drive-in church lets South Koreans congregate safely – video

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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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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Men acquitted of Daniel Pearl murder kept in detention in Pakistan

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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.

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

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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.

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