Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Lisa Nandy rejects calls for England to boycott Afghanistan cricket match

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Culture secretary says it should go ahead despite pressure for it to be cancelled over Taliban’s treatment of women

England should be allowed to play next month’s cricket match against Afghanistan, the culture and sport secretary has said, despite calls for a boycott over the Taliban government’s treatment of women.

Lisa Nandy backed a decision by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to allow the game to go ahead, saying on Friday that cancelling it would “deny sports fans the opportunity that they love”.

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Investigators receive black box data from plane that crashed in Kazakhstan

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Authorities now have access to cockpit dialogue from Azerbaijan Airlines plane that went down on Christmas Day

Brazil’s air force has extracted the data from two black box recorders belonging to a crashed Azerbaijan Airlines plane that Baku claims was downed by Russia on Christmas Day, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.

The Brazilian-made Embraer 190 crash-landed in Kazakhstan after being diverted from a scheduled landing in the Chechen capital, Grozny, in southern Russia. Azerbaijan believes the plane was shot down by Russian air defences, which Moscow says were operational in the area at the time.

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Indian press groups call for investigation after journalist’s body found in septic tank

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Mukesh Chandrakar had reported on alleged corruption in the construction industry and had a popular YouTube channel

Indian media rights groups have called for an investigation after the body of a missing journalist was found hidden in a septic tank.

Mukesh Chandrakar, 32, was a well-known freelance journalist in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh who contributed to some of the country’s biggest news channels. He had also widely reported on alleged corruption in the construction industry on his popular YouTube channel.

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Removal of waste from site of 1984 Bhopal disaster dismissed as ‘farce’

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Indian government accused of PR stunt after moving 337 tonnes of toxic waste that had been held in containers

Forty years after one of world’s deadliest industrial disasters struck the Indian city of Bhopal, a cleanup operation has finally begun to remove hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste from the site.

However, local campaigners have accused the Indian government of greenwashing, arguing that the 337 tonnes of waste removed this week represents less than 1% of the more than 1m tonnes of hazardous materials left after the disaster and that the cleanup has done nothing to tackle chemical contamination of the area.

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Kung fu nuns show off martial art skills at monastery reopening in Nepal

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Nuns mark opening of Druk Amitabha nunnery with performance, five years after Covid closure

About a dozen nuns performed hand chops and high kicks, some of them wielding swords, as they showed off their martial art skills to hundreds of cheering wellwishers at the reopening of their nunnery in Nepal.

The nuns of the hilltop Druk Amitabha monastery put on the show of strength to mark the institution’s reopening five years after Covid forced it to close its doors to the public.

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Azerbaijan president blames Russia for shooting down plane on Christmas Day

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President Aliyev says Moscow must ‘admit its guilt’ after downing plane, albeit unintentionally, with loss of 38 lives

Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev said the Azerbaijani airliner that crashed last week was shot down by Russia, albeit unintentionally, and criticised Moscow for trying to “hush up” the issue for days.

“We can say with complete clarity that the plane was shot down by Russia … we are not saying that it was done intentionally, but it was done,” he told Azerbaijani state television.

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India mourns former PM Manmohan Singh with Delhi state funeral

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Coffin flanked by honour guard and carried to Congress party headquarters in capital as Modi hails one of country’s ‘most distinguished leaders’

Mourners in India’s capital gathered on Saturday to pay their respects to former prime minister Manmohan Singh ahead of a state funeral for a leader who was key to the country’s economic liberalisation.

Singh, who held office from 2004 to 2014, died at the age of 92 on Thursday, after which seven days of state mourning were declared.

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Azerbaijan Airlines says there was ‘external interference’ before crash

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Carrier suspends flights to five Russian airports after early findings of investigation into crash on Christmas Day

The aircraft that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, killing 38 people, experienced “external physical and technical interference”, according to preliminary results of an investigation, Azerbaijan Airlines said on Friday.

The early findings led the carrier to suspend flights to five Russian airports, citing “potential risks to flight safety”, adding to the two routes that were suspended immediately after the crash.

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Former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh dies aged 92

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The ex-politician was admitted to hospital on Thursday after his health deteriorated

India’s former prime minister, Manmohan Singh, widely regarded as the architect of India’s economic reform program and a landmark nuclear deal with the US, has died aged 92.

Singh was admitted to New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences late Thursday after his health deteriorated due to “sudden loss of consciousness at home”, the hospital said in a statement, adding that he was “being treated for age-related medical conditions”.

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Ceremonies held across Asia to mark 20 years since Boxing Day tsunami

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Waves towering up to 30 metres killed more than 220,000 people in 15 countries in deadliest tsunami in history

Ceremonies have been held in countries across Asia to remember the more than 220,000 people who were killed two decades ago in the Indian Ocean tsunami, the most deadly tsunami in history.

On 26 December 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia’s Sumatra island, triggering huge waves that slammed into coastal communities across the Indian Ocean. The waves, which towered as high as 30 metres, killed 227,899 people across 15 countries.

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Officials report 29 survivors and 38 killed as plane crashes in Kazakhstan

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Aircraft carrying 62 passengers and five crew was en route from Baku to Grozny in Chechnya

Twenty-nine people have survived after a passenger plane operated by Azerbaijan Airlines burst into flames as it crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after veering hundreds of miles off its planned route.

The flight was carrying 62 passengers and five crew members with 38 killed in the crash, according to Kazakhstan’s deputy prime minister, Kanat Bozumbayev.

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Shyam Benegal, influential director of India’s ‘parallel cinema’, dies aged 90

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The film-maker challenged mainstream Bollywood and pioneered a new wave cinema movement in the 1970s that tackled social issues

Shyam Benegal, a renowned Indian film-maker known for pioneering a new wave cinema movement that tackled social issues in the 1970s, has died aged 90 after suffering from chronic kidney disease.

Benegal passed away on Monday at Mumbai’s Wockhardt hospital and his cremation took place on Tuesday, the Press Trust of India news agency reported, quoting his daughter Piya. “Benegal had been suffering from chronic kidney disease for several years but it had gotten very bad. That’s the reason for his death,” Piya said.

Many paid tribute to the film-maker on social media platform X. “Deeply saddened by the passing of Shyam Benegal, whose storytelling had a profound impact on Indian cinema. His works will continue to be admired by people from different walks of life,” India’s prime minister Narendra Modi tweeted.

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Bangladesh formally asks India to extradite former PM Sheikh Hasina

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Hasina fled to India after student-led protests that ended her 15 years in power

Bangladesh has submitted a formal request to India to extradite its former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled to New Delhi in August amid student-led protests that ended her 15 years in power, according to the country’s foreign affairs adviser.

Ties between the south Asian neighbours, who have strong trade and cultural links, have become fraught since Hasina was ousted after violent protests against her rule, and she took refuge across the border.

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Tulip Siddiq questioned over multibillion-pound embezzlement allegations

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Treasury minister denies claims by Bangladesh that she helped broker corrupt deal with Russia to build nuclear plant

The Treasury minister Tulip Siddiq has been questioned by the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team after Bangladesh’s anti-corruption commission accused her and family members of embezzling billions for a nuclear power plant.

The Labour MP, who denies allegations that she helped broker a deal with Russia to build the energy project, reportedly told a government official that she was the victim of a “political hit job”.

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India-Bangladesh relations sour as tensions rise over attacks on Hindu minority

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Allegations of violence against Hindus prompt mass protests in India and attack on Bangladeshi consulate

Growing tensions between India and Bangladesh have erupted amid accusations of attacks on Bangladesh’s Hindu minority, which have prompted mass protests and assault on a Bangladeshi consulate in India.

The relationship between the two countries has soured since August, when a popular uprising – now widely termed the “monsoon revolution” – toppled Bangladesh’s authoritarian prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

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Tamils arriving in UK after three years stranded on Diego Garcia speak of relief

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Lawyers and campaigners hail removal of 47 people from remote Indian Ocean island as ‘a big day for justice’

Dozens of people stranded in hellish conditions for more than three years on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia have arrived in the UK and told of their relief that their journey is over.

Lawyers and campaigners hailed the arrival of 47 Sri Lankan Tamils on Monday night as a “big day for justice”, with a further eight arriving on Tuesday morning from Rwanda, where they had been receiving medical treatment. Twelve children were among them.

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Landmark space mission set to create artificial solar eclipses using satellites

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Two satellites in Proba-3 mission expected to be launched on Wednesday in India and will work in tandem to study sun’s corona

Final preparations have begun for a landmark space mission that will use satellites flying in close formation to create artificial solar eclipses high above the Earth.

The Proba-3 mission is the European Space Agency’s first attempt at precise formation flying in orbit and calls for two spacecraft to loop around the planet in an arrangement that never deviates by more than a millimetre, about the thickness of a human fingernail.

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Women arrested by Taliban for begging report rape and killings in Afghan jails

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Draconian new laws allow mass incarceration of women and children forced to beg because of work ban

Destitute Afghan women arrested for begging under draconian new Taliban laws have spoken of “brutal” rapes and beatings in detention.

Over the past few months, many women said they had been targeted by Taliban officials and detained under anti-begging laws passed this year. While in prison, they claim they were subjected to sexual abuse, torture and forced labour, and witnessed children being beaten and abused.

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Pakistan army and police accused of firing on Imran Khan supporters

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Multiple protesters said to have been killed and hundreds injured in Islamabad amid calls for Khan’s release from jail

Pakistan’s army and police have been accused of firing on civilians, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries to hundreds of protesters who had stormed Islamabad on Tuesday to demand the release of the former prime minister Imran Khan from prison.

As tens of thousands of Khan’s supporters stormed the capital on Tuesday in defiance of government orders, the army and paramilitary forces were deployed in huge numbers and issued with shoot-to-kill orders to try to stop the crowds reaching the heart of Islamabad’s sensitive Red Zone, which houses the parliament, supreme court and prime minister’s residence.

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ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrant for Myanmar junta chief

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Min Aung Hlaing accused of crimes against humanity over deportation and persecution of Rohingya minority

The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) is seeking an arrest warrant for Myanmar’s military leader, Min Aung Hlaing, for crimes against humanity over the deadly crackdowns against the country’s Rohingya minority that drove hundreds of thousands to flee to Bangladesh.

Karim Khan said that “after an extensive, independent and impartial investigation” his office had concluded there were reasonable grounds to believe that the Myanmar junta chief “bears criminal responsibility for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya committed in Myanmar and in part in Bangladesh”.

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